Bio: Donna
Snyder founded the Tumblewords Project in 1995 and continues to organize its
free weekly workshops and other events around El Paso, Texas. She has three
poetry collections and her poems and book reviews appear in journals and
anthologies. Donna previously practiced law representing indigenous people,
people with disabilities, and immigrant workers, and she also prosecuted
misdemeanor environmental crimes and fraud.
The desert never stops outside my door
Daybreak
I walk back and forth in the front yard.
Pigeons
flock around my feet as I walk singing,
swinging
seeds across the fence to the sparrows
aflutter
in the haunted mesquites outside my fence.
They eat
left-over kale stems, pear cores, burnt rice,
break
apart dog shit seeking desiccated delicacies.
Provide
a service as well as their murmured beauty.
Today I
found a fat one left at my back door,
iridescent
feathers ringed its neck in shiny glory
I shook
my fist at my beloved pitty, Bubba.
Don't kill my pretty birds, I scold him.
Don't look away from me with silent
tail.
I make a
funeral march to the garbage pail out front,
wailing
to birds mourning in silence from my roof.
Then
feed the boys in their respective yards.
The pug
eats beside the shed in back.
The
chastened pit bull in the side yard.
The
boxer on her tray inside the kitchen.
I shout Birds stay outta my dog's mouth!
Shaking
my finger, I remind the boys,
Don’t bite the birds! They bring joy.
My dogs
are good boys. It's about turf.
The
pigeons bully the dogs. Yes, really.
They
mock them, bathe in their water,
steal
their food. Claim the Alpha’s top step.
Nothing
thrives in the desert without thorn, claw,
scale,
or tooth, without shelter from the killing sky.
I will
feed them again tomorrow, singing in the desert
as I do.
Praying only to stone and feathers who demand
no
sacrifice of blood.
A Mexican
bird of paradise stands in my backyard.
It bites
me if I get too close. It guards my dead.
Invocation
after Joy
Harjo’s A Map to the Next World
Someone
burned my map to righteous wellness.
GPS is
pointless, mere worthless plastic now.
No family
left cairns by which to find my way.
The
people who probably loved me long dead,
I rarely
feel their spirits close now, to my shame.
The more
I grieve the more I am left behind.
No place
to return to, no refuge waiting for me
anywhere,
with a cup of tea or joyful embrace.
I am
castigated for my fear and chronic despair,
as if
sorrow is a choice rather than an unwanted gift.
All my
love gone toxic as the air we breathe, I curl
into an
awkward knot around my beautiful monster,
the
boxer bitch who is my love and only comfort.
The
light long gone dark, I am scared to leave my bed.
The
water long gone dry, I never bathe or wash sheets.
My mind
is somewhere no one knows me, all past
defining
roles no longer mine, my vision blind.
I weave
a map of virtue, but no road leads home.
Solidarity
with each group I encounter is my nature, yet
I have
neither tribe nor father indulgent of his prodigal.
No one
holds out a hand to welcome me some place I belong.
I will
leave nothing but this soliloquy of a wandering devil.
It is
okay to know this: When my lungs stop, thick and hard
with
death, my dog will feed on the matter I leave behind.
This is
my blood, now the color of dirt.
This is my
ravaged body, remember me?
Waiting for the light of revelation
In the midnight hours
dark and lonely as an unmarked
grave,
rage and weeping make a
cadence.
Audible despair rises and
falls,
beats like wings, ceaseless
before gusts,
torrents, an unpredicted
storm.
I can’t write, I think.
The music is where I come from, I think.
Bread and water, the glory of light,
a cracked and open heart.
Images flee. Here there is no
Word.
Here there is no language.
Seeing no deliverance,
rage and weeping echoes in the
dark.
Desert pastorals. Don't eat the birds, they bring joy. As do your poems.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Dustin. I appreciate you reading and commenting. I respect you and your work.
Delete