Peace

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Entering the desert requires
leaving.
News, screens,
the anticipatory leap
prompted by notification
dings—
it all has to go.
But you can't force it.
Slowness is the way forward
and forward means
a thousand tiny decisions,
shifts away from
and toward.
A choice to leave.
A choice to remain.
I step off the path
into gravel
that clicks, shifts,
then settles under my weight.
Each step
an announcement in three parts—
until
the sound stops.
Standing in the middle of
nowhere
with no one
and no tether
my ears stay alert,
waiting for the next
disturbance.
The mind is loud
around me—wind.
A choice to hear it.
The ridge in front of me—
a long, flat line of stone,
sun caught along the upper edge,
gold thinning
as it slips downward.
Soon it reaches me—
a brief warmth begins
across my cheek.
I remember this feeling—
and then I forget why.
My hand moves to my daypack
fingers mindlessly searching
for a shape that isn’t there.
They rest against lip balm,
then fall away.
Heat gathers at the surface of my skin,
dry and arid,
without rise or fall.
A faint sweetness
threads through the air.
I turn toward it,
scanning for blooms,
for color,
for a single point to name.
Only thorn,
dry stem,
rock.
Is this a trick?
The scent arrives again,
from nowhere I can point to.
I thought I knew everything.
A fly distracts me—
lands on the back of my hand.
Its legs tap,
pause,
tap again.
I watch
instead of brushing it off.
It lifts
and disappears
into the same air.
I wonder if
it wondered who
I am.
The light continues
down the ridge in sections—
one ledge brightens,
another dims.
To my left, a saguaro
with one arm bent
at a deliberate angle,
skin ribbed,
casting a narrow shadow
that stretches and thins.
I stand there long enough
to notice—
the light passing over me
keeps going.
My breathing changes—
a catch at first,
then a slower pull,
air moving deeper
without effort.
A bird crosses the sky
in a straight line,
wing to wing,
cutting through blue.
I follow the line it makes
until it fades,
and the sky remains
wide,
open.
—Iris Lennox