Eric Magrane

Notes from Tucson, June 2002





coming into Phoenix over the mountains glittering cars and cars of the city, 

metallic refractions the wing dips right then evens out

and we're making our descent





	***



green dripping in rain, different from the summer desert,

we go down to a town in New Hampshire - Wolfboro, get a coffee and walk

drops come off the lake with a slight indentation,

docks slick in the glare,



there I think of being back here in the desert,

here I think of being back there in the woods



	***



practicewater   

this is a training of the mind, outside cicadas



in a New Mexico canyon we could tell the time of day by the sound



floating and rearranging itself, rhythmic



outside the wind is quiet



	***



all the images are in the past,

getting on a bus in Conway, New Hampshire,

snow coming down and the road slow-going



these are things I remember: walking, sitting in a canoe under a bridge in Kennebunkport sound swallows itself when cars go over the bridge tires sound pavement in rain



always the rain, in poetry the missing things



	***

how can an image come from the future 



always think of things that are moving 

a landscape similar to the southwest

always an entry point 

the road to the yácatas at Ihuatzio, 

a man standing in a field, the wind, an old Mexican man plowing



	



marigolds, gardens, and the market, tomatoes and avocados, 

colors and smell and the dogs at night



	***



the west is on fire, animals flee the forests  



all around them the world is caving in, 



they are lost in the roads, they don't know where to go, they come down into the desert





	***



they're hit by cars.  the heat another day 108 degrees.  the fire is real.  orange and blue.  



The fire takes what it needs.

To fight it, we clear away what it needs.

We starve it.  Try to hold our ground.



we are afraid of losing control



	***



there are two fires, coming toward each other, the larger one will devour the smaller one, bring it into itself, creating the largest single wildfire in state history, the larger and the smaller, rolling through the dry earth, and what do the fires leave behind and the land will be changed everything will be changed and so many years ago 



vehicles line up, people are told to be ready to leave at a moment's notice,

what will you take?  what will you leave behind?

and those who want to stay with the land will not leave, 

they will go down with the forest,



the more times something is written, infused with energy

it swirls in on itself, everything will come back to something new



cars run into bears, eventually they'll come down into the city, with nowhere else to go, a car is totaled comes around a corner on its way out of town and runs into a bear.  The bear is killed.  The driver is killed. The animals are making the driving treacherous.  



	***



and the questions of real time other places, Paricutín, church rising out from volcanic field, earlier the last century, a man tilling his field in a small town began to notice the land rising around him, molten rock the molten shape shifting the world is malleable, houses are lost, going up to the volcano top the texture of the black ash, black ash the texture of black ash, the ride back and the cold of the night,



training a mind and 

and when the rain comes, we wait for the rain



hope they all have insurance, oh the insurance companies will hate it



	*** 



once a year, the night blooming cereus flowers, the rest of the year they look like dead sticks



many less flowers this year, especially now drought 118 degrees,  

insects sing the heat



the changing



night and we went shopping and to a movie 

 

who makes the history, in a quick sped up, world



then we remove ourselves too



and still out in the woods, Jesse, and Loba, tending to their New Mexico canyon, 

going from one day to the next, letting them slide into one another,



in single things it happens



	***



the action,

what is inside of it, changes it, its speed



	***



on the news this morning possible thundershowers coming and clouds, partially cloudy days, we rejoice!



	a life of notes,

to myself, to others, to-do lists,

check marks, and crossed out pages,

recycle the white paper



freeway, freeway mind ideas passing						

	

			Alvernon and 5th as far as town went, and now the end



of Speedway



driving all day out to the mountains, out to get a bit of perspective





	***



									the city sits



	the desert, slides across the desert,        the city slides across the desert





the city rolls away from the Rincons

the city rolls away, west,

the city rolls, west,



shimmering metal

in late afternoon

desert light



the city is the dry river

	cattle driven dry,

	salt cedar, mesquite, limb coils

	wait for monsoon

oldest continuously inhabited land



small houses, mile and mile

miles and miles