The Desert’s Palm

Here is what I know: silence has a sound.

It hum-thrums the body like a harp—
gentle though, chest-centered, a
vibrating anchor sinking through synapses,
electricity buzzing from ears to earth.

Mosaic Canyon was forged
by successions of fill-and-scour cycles:
flash floods depositing sediment;
less intense storms then slowly scouring the canyon again.

Water courts time while power is held by creases in the desert’s palm.

Too often you expect your own change
to occur with immediacy,
the well poisoned by impatience
and a yearning for certitude.

But you are not other than these canyon walls.
You too will not reach a point of completion.
You too must empty yourself repeatedly,
maintaining the lessons of the last storm.

___

Watch Taylor Stoneman read this poem on TikTok.