Sedona Phenomena

Any arrangement of five could be you or me.
Make my head a violet petaled bloom,
a trail head sign, a twisted tree.
Your two arms serve as penstemon,
my legs two creosote. Still, my head
could simply be a head. Twenty years ago,
Sedona was my dream.

Your limbs were nearly shrubs then,
my left leg was a sign.
If clouds were bushes and moons,
my mother limbs were clouds.
Sedona loves to dream.

The carved sign tells you how to find
the overlooks and loops.
Shout from the spires and buttes,
from shadowlines of roofs:
You are Sedona’s dream.

What is your vantage? Where will you stop?
When do you finally open your robe,
unbutton your blouse, expose rocks?
They are smaller than you think,
so close, or possibly farther away,
receding atmospherically—
Sedona’s fading dream.

2015
in response to Les Barta’s photoconstruction, exhibited at the CACE Gallery of Fine Art in Spring 2015