Origins

Nowhere but in the occasional dream
can I know again
                                    with certainty
those hills, the dead-end road,

the solace of so often walking—
                        with such little thought
as to where time was leading me—

                        to the place
where the asphalt gave way
            to stone, dust,
and an amber imbroglio of manzanita.

No longer fluent in my primal dialect,
the tones rising with the sap
            of the blue eucalyptus, I can only recall

that I thought like a child.
And reasoning like a child, I thought
            it best to keep secret

                        the certainty of my love
for the aromatic leaves,

            the strips of bark day by day
            peeling back to expose
the radiant layers: a gesture

            toward the desperation to be known.