It takes an eternity to drive from Minneapolis , Minnesota , to Marathon , Texas . I was so hypnotized by the highway that when I finally stopped outside Wichita , I splashed gasoline all over my jeans . How did I get here ? The generous offer of a two-week residency . I ’ m a poet and a mom to a small child , and because poetry is rarely a money-making venture , I also have a full-time job . A residency is an opportunity for an artist to grasp the valuable resources of time and space and focus them on what they love . I was awarded the residency through an organization called Writing x Writers .

When I set out in late March 2023 , Minnesota was still cold and dead . But signs of life revealed themselves as I drove southward . Trees held small green buds against the backdrop of banks of bright orange Oklahoman clay . A body craves color the same way it craves water or touch .

Texas is monstrous . About halfway through my second day of driving , I got caught in a sandstorm . It was like a cruel baptism ; I wouldn ’ t be allowed into the glory of the Trans-Pecos area without proving my mettle . The sky was menacing , and there was nothing to brace the wind from the dust in the fields . Trucks turned on their flashers and drove slowly , so I did the same . It was exactly like driving in a blizzard , but the roads weren ’ t slippery . By the time the sand dissipated , I was clenched around the steering wheel .

Interstate-20 offered its own horrors : traffic , construction , roadkill , detritus . I kept waiting for the landscape to turn beautiful , to look like a place worth driving through hell for . There were plumes of fire in the oil fields as I exited the interstate to take backroads the rest of the way . There , the landscape began to roll gently into hills . Occasionally a seam split through the hills to reveal the earth ’ s rocky backbone .

to take in : to ingest to take in : to mislead .

to take in : to hem a garment

to envelope whole

to take in : to offer shelter

I pass under bridges numbered to a third decimal point : 87.587 I pass through a duststorm

I pass an oil field with plumes ablaze

I spent most of my time in Marathon , working on a book-length project called Wheel of Fortune . In May of 2021 , I purchased a large rolodex from an open-air flea market in Springfield , OH . The plan is to write a long-form poem about circles and time , borders and illusions , insides and outsides , abundance and drought , desire and acceptance onto the rolodex : one line per card . I brought the rolodex with me , along with a typewriter and more books than I ’ d ever be able to read in two weeks . ( Excerpts of the Wheel that I wrote while in Marathon appear throughout this essay .)

I arrived on a Saturday . I bought groceries and picked flowers . On Sunday , I walked to Gage Gardens . In the rose garden , I offered to take a photograph of a local couple who worked at a nearby ranch . They asked what brought me to Marathon and invited me to visit the ranch . I never made it , but wish I had , so moved was I by their openness and kindness . This was my first experience with the generosity of spirit and feeling of friendship I ’ d find again and again in my interactions with the people of the Trans-Pecos .

I pass a cattle ranch that spans three highways he name means “ the ladder ” in Spanish a worker ’ s voice reaches us sporadically as song from the greenhouses

I pray in slow-motion roses mirror each other desert = desert and the pines the pines

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Cenizo Spring 2024