Prayer to Death Valley
1.
The desert blooms gold in the spring
where I've come to make a pilgrimage
after years of living in cities.

All I hear is expanse.

Blooms yellow gold with purple mats
spreading across the desert floor
like a beautiful contagion.

I stand below sea level
on a skating pond of salt
looking out on two tectonic plates
and so want to catch it,

the way a flower struts its stuff
on a shelf of rock.

Change me.
Make me new.

2.
All I hear is expanse.

Long ago,
near Hunts Point Avenue in the Bronx,
I strolled with my doll, Judy,
along a slate pavement.

I remember how she smelled
when I first opened her box,
like a bird with the scent
of cut grass on its wing.

She had an alluvial fan of brown hair.

I loved her so much.
When her sawdust brains poured
into my hand,
my mother bought
new dolls to take her place
with clothes, and some could talk.

Imposters.

I vowed silence
until I found out
what had gone wrong,
flew back
to the only place where trees grew
in my borough, Pelham Bay Park.


3.
All I hear is expanse.

I've seen people
walk through a revolving door
to find air conditioning
on a long afternoon
exhausted by heat,
looking for water.

The dead cannot be replaced,
only remembered.

It's creation we know nothing about.


4.
Valley, uplift this daughter.
Fold together my pain.
Change me.
Make me new.

Show me the terrible place where love comes from.