Shelter Land (desert)

Jesse S. Mitchell

Don’t go out and get lost in the night, the razor sharp sides of knives-the night, in the dark, the dark of night.
It is dangerous.
Be anyone.
Best to wait for the slow hemorrhages of the sudden dawn’s light
 the bleached out  blades of early horizon, the rolling unfurling scarves of  bright,
the
Slavic golds and  the Celtic yellows and the Aztec reds
the bare-knuckled thread wound ’round the skies so tight.
Avoid the midnight.  The dim barely-seeing, barely breathing, rush.  All the weight of day behind you.  Avoid the crush, that crush of hard time, weighting down.  Avoid the ebbing-the tiding, the always changing, lucid dreaming.  Avoid traveling at night, it is confusing and no stars are even ever that sober, that clear to show you the way around.
Don’t go out and get lost at night.  Wait for the violentest of astonishing light.
Be anyone.
It is dangerous.  

So we will grimace an alldaysufferin’ never know no ease.  Grit our teeth and clench our jaws against the knowing of any from
Of any form of celestial wonderment.
Clench my fist.  
Of any form of wonderment.
Between two open wide mouths, this blaring hell, the noise,
 the golden tops of the sandy-maybe(hopefully)-growing fields of grain.
Magic magic wheat, tassling corn.  The stripping heat.
The cracking, peeling lips
But too, the humidity.
The hoarse throats.
But never, moonlight. Never when the dew…
But never lost in the night.
But never to go out and get lost in the dark of the night
It is dangerous.
Be anyone.