Tracks

For Connie

I walk the beach

in our winter sun,

gathering stones and shells.

The heavy lace-up boots

I bought in Lamesa, Texas,

leave distinctive tracks.

      ***

We stood on a small rise

at the edge of Indian land. 

‘This is my ocean,’ she said.

I gazed at acres of prairie,

waves of rolling scrub,

an endless, hypnotic horizon.

Heat lay like a cape

on my shoulders.

The wide, flat roadway

shifted and bled.

An older landscape rose

through structures

of present time.

I knew the curve of its earth,

I knew the shape of its light.

      ***

I walk the winter beach

tracking my footprints back

to find the place I entered,

a pathway through the scrub.

A man stands in the shallows

fishing the outgoing tide.

The breeze freshens.

Submitted for dVerse Entwin(n)ed Poetics June 2013

I met Connie in Lamesa, Texas, in April 2006 when I was a guest in her home, a featured reader at the annual Forrest Fest arts festival (behind which she is the driving force) and we also celebrated Beltane together. Put in touch by a mutual friend, we recognised each other at once as soul twins, and still keep in touch.

And here is her twin poem for me! —

Without Time

for Rosemary

I gather tears in my eyes

Remembering heat waves rising

On the distant prairie edge as together

We survey the blue and ridged rim of sandstone cliffs

Bearing the scarred bones of Apache warriors

We miss the lone buffalo that roams

There, the golden eagle I hoped would

Re-appear for my visitor from down under,

The cliche road juggles us back through shinery

Past red and black Indian blankets, yellow sunflowers

A budding Ycca tall and slender sprouting from the earth

To un-posted property from the

Trespass we have entered, a place

Where time stands still and the moment becomes

Buried treasure in the badlands.

My Australian friend blends into the

Landscape, a desert Rose . .

Soon we will return to our respective realities

We are distant, separate in our bodies

Hemispheres attempt to separate our souls,

Yet and still, the spirit transcends the borders

Her ocean waves bump against my prairie sand dunes

We are one under the moon

                               

Connie Williams