Burning Man, 2018.

Burning Man, 2018
©2018 Meredith Heller

Biking across the moon
at Burning Man.

A temple of infinite white
an ancient river bed
its belly scalloped and scaled
by fossilized fish
and creatures who make pearls
in the darkness
underground.

The wind is my compass
she wraps me in waves of silk
that blow like sails.
She leads me in circles
I follow her into labyrinths
where she whispers
in deep vibrato
each note clicking into place
unlocking my rusty gates.

Surrender to the dust
all day and all night
the white witch
sugars my skin.

Follow her silver trails
that trace my body
like a map
revealing each crevice
where I push or pull
toward or against the grain,
where I stretch
on the bias.

The doors of the desert
open to let me in.
I turn on a kaleidoscope
of color and sound
that bleeds
into one heart pulsing
spinning dust devils
blowing her song
on didgeridoo,
guiding me through worm holes
into spaces of stillness
where for one brief moment
I am held in the palm of her hand
offered a cool drink from her oasis,
and billowing with gratitude,
I spill into everything
and nothingness
all at once.
~
Dawn in the desert
licks the sky
with a pastel tongue.

The moon drips the last of her honey
from the tip of her scythe
into the horizon’s fold.

The pirate ships
that roam the riverbed
sail home
with their carousel horses
and their Coney Island neon,
and fade slowly
as morning consumes the night.

Here in the desert
where civilizations rise and die
leaving no trace
of their love
and their loss
totems crumble and fall
in the fire
that is speaking in tongues.

I am tempered
in the forge of the sun
heated and cooled
hammered and folded
over and over
until the inside of me
and the outside of me
meet and merge.

I see between the particles
to the space
that connects us all.

We are the makers
the specks that glow
in this great sea
leaving only an echo
as we sign our names in the dust,

which we too,
will become.

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