Continued from page 5

On Monday , I drove into Big Bend . Ocotillo bloomed along the roadside . I hiked The Lost Mine Trail and The Window in one day . I was so overcome by the volcanic rock that I stopped several times to press my hands against it . When faced with the destruction and pain human beings create on a global scale each day , I try to think about geological time . The earth is alive and has been creating beauty out of terror for millenia , and it will continue to do so long after we ’ re gone .

if you need desert , I ’ ll send you desert the carved hearts of cacti notched in / out like windows if desert is what you need , then I ’ ll be desert every step you take down is a step you have to take on the way back up

I carry a small handmade notebook with me , because I draft most of my writing as I move . I stop on a trail , I pull over on a highway , I lean against a gallery wall .

I returned to Big Bend several times during my residency . My favorite portion was the western reaches of the park . The voices of fellow hikers echoed against Santa Elena Canyon . Laughter shattered apart and cascaded like light glinting on water . On the Burro Spring trail , the prickly pear were in full bloom , stretching as far as I could see , so many my heart split open at the endless sight of them . As I drove from that trail to the Lower Burro Mesa Pouroff , a red racer slipped across the road . I took its brightness for a miracle .

consonance of laughter + cracked earth contorted through the canyon ’ s mouth otherworldly though we ’ re feet apart there are jewels here rhyolite and ash-flow the measured elements cactus flowers bursts open just like them

so many your heart

On the eastern end of the park , I dipped my feet in the hot springs . On the Canyon Rim trail , a young man struck rocks together to deter mountain lions . Across the Rio Grande , a man rode a brown and white paint horse . I watched the trail unwind in front of me and considered how the desert is the last place , how it endures . Perhaps being bound by scarcity , pared to our most essential elements , reveals what ’ s most

transformative in us . The desert is at once a site of scarcity and deep abundance . I wonder , when I look at the desert , whether I ’ m looking into the future .

it ’ s endless this is the start

if you keep beginning again

I sing my breath into the wind we ’ ll be a desert people dusk-tongued and searching for shade

The days begin to bleed into each other . I spent a day thrifting in Alpine and will tell everyone who will listen to visit the Alpine Humane Society Thrift Store and Cattery (?!). I enjoyed burger night at French Co . Grocer in Marathon , where I sat awkwardly reading Katy Mongeau ’ s rad book Apostasy ( Black Sun Lit , 2020 ) until the locals invited me to join them . As with the ranch hands at Gage Gardens , the proprietor of the thrift store / cattery , and the man at J & M Automotive in Marfa who squeezed me in for a last-minute oil