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SNOWSHOE IN SUMMER
by Jeanine Stevens Genoa, Nevada In this high desert, the marker we find tight against the base of the Sierras. Modest, the stone stands alone, perfect for one who loved solitude. The name seems newly chiseled: Snowshoe Thompson. Age 49 YearsThe next purpling range ripples on heat waves. He loved to hear the colors move. At my feet, between sagebrush and sand, a garter snake wriggles around boulders, brings his own gold stripe and small bones. Near the road, a scrawny mule deer startles away from the green of a new golf course. We look back; in the white noonday sun, Thompson's headstone glistens alabaster, crossed long distance skis— etched deep. |
SAND DUNES NATIONAL PARK by Brenda Yamen |
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FAITH
by Carol Hamilton "The certainty without being sure." —Charles Bernstein, "High Tide at Race Point" What did the Desert Fathers discover? Landscapes with Jimson Weed nopales, cholla? sage? tamarisk? I think, instead, stark Saharan sands bare mounds like those captured in a bottleneck corner where the Sangre de Cristo range slips out of Colorado into New Mexico those sands that burned our feet when the sun came out. We splashed happily through the sparse river to cool our car-weary selves scurried past those crowded around the billboards with instructions for safe passage scampered toes slipping down into bits of glassy particularity. Then the clouds parted pain scorched us and we knew we had made some mistake. Now I count each grain of sand as error on a rosary I finger constantly trust the touch whether cool or searing as the only true thing I have ever doubted. |
DESERT SNOW by Lynn Crounse |
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THE CACTUS IN THE GREENHOUSE
by J.R. Solonche The cactus in the greenhouse has three arms. At the end of one arm, there is a broad, flat, open palm of a hand, with slender spikes for fingers. It holds up against the pane, triumphantly, a single pink flower so translucent it looks to be made itself of pink glass. "See," says the cactus, "what I have had to do to get to the sun. I have had to make love to glass." |
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