I Am A Wild Sonoran Desert Plant

So, what do you do when the life you planned goes south?

Obviously, you deal with the aftermath, write some really bad poetry, drink a couple of near beers (non-alcoholic), and swear to yourself, “Never again.”

But you know you’ll leave your heart open.

Then you sit there for a while and wonder what the hell just happened. Why did I end a relationship with someone I still cared for?

I know the answer.

And I know there are still questions that hurt.

This is a totally different kind of goodbye for me, and I wish I had something more profound to offer.

I just don’t.

Sometimes life doesn’t need a lesson attached to it. Sometimes things just go sideways, and you’re left standing in the middle of the mess, trying to figure out what’s yours to pick up and what’s better left right where it landed.

I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere in that stage right now.

The aftermath.

Believe it or not, I’m doing okay. I’m just sad. Disappointed. A little lost.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, my twenty-something granddaughter called to check on broken-hearted Grandma. I told her, “You young folks think us old farts don’t have drama. Oh, honey. We have drama. We just have more years of experience pretending we don’t.”

I’ve thought about it. I’ve been angry about it. I’ve been sad about it. I’ve probably overthought it to death. And then I did what I apparently do when I don’t know what else to do.

I cried.

I shuffled through my empty house - stopping long enough to sit in your chair…

I dropped twelve pounds.

And wrote bad angst poetry. Such as.

The Wild Thing That Grew Here

I am not a peony.
I was never meant
for a garden bed,
measured and watered,
pruned into something
more pleasing to the eye.
I am a wild Sonoran thing.
I know the language
of hard ground
and long summers.
I know what it means
to hold my roots
where nobody thought
anything could grow.

I am burnt sienna,
the color of clay
after the fire,
of desert walls
when evening lays
its hand upon them.
I carry warmth,
but I have been burned.

I carry softness,
but I have learned
where the thorns belong.

I am the sky
before the monsoon.
Dark gathering
over an otherwise ordinary afternoon,
electric with possibility.

I can be quiet
for a very long time.
Then suddenly
there is thunder.

Questions come.
Books open.
Tea steeps.
Scripture speaks
and I argue with it
until I understand
what it is asking of me.

I am a javelina
moving through the desert
with my little band
of chosen companions.

I don't belong
to everyone.
I never did.

Come too close
without listening
and you may discover
that boundaries
have teeth.

But stay awhile.
Sit beside me.
You might hear
the softest things:
the small green insistence
of something growing
through a crack
in the hard caliche soil.

I have learned
that silence is not empty.
Sometimes God is there.
Sometimes memory is there.
Sometimes love can be found there.
Sometimes I am there,
waiting to find out
which voice
I am hearing.

And perhaps that is why
I keep walking.
Through cemeteries
and desert trails,
through old stories
and sacred books,
through questions
that refuse to die.

I am still looking.
Still listening.
Still becoming.
And if you ask me
what I am,
I won't tell you
I am unbreakable.

I have broken.

I won't tell you
I am fearless.

I have been afraid.

I won't tell you
I have everything figured out.

Good Lord, no.

I will tell you this:
I survived the drought.
I learned the rain.
I put down roots
in difficult soil.
And when the season
was finally right,
I bloomed.
Not because someone
made me beautiful.
Not because someone
gave me permission.
But because
I am a wild Sonoran Desert plant,
and this,
apparently,
is where I grow