Wild Mustard
Abandoning the paper on the driveway,
I walk out into the stillness tasting
the night’s rain, sage and juniper
pale silver in the dazzled light tilting the buttes,
a cloud of blue mesa lying on the horizon.
Off the wind pours an unmistakable scent
from the first tips of green standing in water,
a speck of purple blossom I scoop up
on my finger to smell its scraggy moist leaf,
its perfect four-petalled cross
sprung up through the hard brown clay of winter:
wild mustard, the desert’s first flower.
How can something so small awaken this land,
this lingering bittersweet greenness
that makes my body tremble for more of its fragrance
as it drifts through this bright air, announces its presence
to the horses standing in their shimmered stances,
the flying bellies of geese
the child tying a string on her bike,
and I who stand dumbstruck
in a field of wild sweet mustard.
What is it in this life I cannot find?
What god is it I am looking for?
Open Spaces