For the dirt that loved me

photo by author

I fled
The pervasive and emotionless blade
reaping souls like so much dry grass
gone to seed and opening
unwanted vacancies in
the broken heart of our land.

I fled
The continuous nightmare of disbelief
the inferno of human libraries
the barren immolation of ourselves
in rooms empty of love.

I fled
To the familiar landscapes of my childhood
the lonely peaks of my heaving cries
where rock and scrub casually witness
my gaping wounds.

And there,
in the hollow
wail of timeless
tortured dirt
crouched on the hillside
I felt the embrace of the valley
by the hills.
The caress of the clouds
on my unblinking eyes
The curious regard of
a city stilled
by fear.

And there,
I seized a moment of untold
defiant joy
for the desert that is mine,
All mine.

Andrea Juillerat-Olvera