desert glow

 

saharan sands fill the skies

with a faraway silvery grey glow

shielding our skin

and the white caustic lime stone of our desert 

from the penetrating rays of our sun

we are suspended in an other worldly respite

from the unforgiving radiance 

emanating from the center of our local gyre

an explosive force reborn again and again and again

here in our piece of heaven

is muted enough just enough

to dream

—Lorena Wolfman

we grow into the bones of our dreams...

 

we grow into the bones of our dreams

slowly

in daylight we may not notice 

their distinctive curved and oh so subtle landscape

we may not notice we are there 

alive in the marrow

inside the curves

visible only in soft periferal focus

the kind of vision that awakens 

when you walk at twilight

the kind urban dwellers

are often starved for

we grow into the bones of our dreams

slowly

and perhaps we awaken to see 

we never left

—Lorena Wolfman

night turning

 

during the night

my dreams 

make powerful poems

dimensions of shadow and memory

open up

dead ancestors 

lie in their graves in plain sight

dear lost friends 

who have buried our friendship 

laugh 

with my mother

who is just there 

between realms

of friendship and death

the earth is freshly turned

all night 

the digging 

the turning 

continues

by dawn a whole new body

has been born

and I have stepped into 

a new day

— Lorena

if I were to ask

 

if I were to ask the land

here where the weather is everything

here where we are so close to the sun

why it lured me here

I know it would say

because 

here you see the sun rise over the eastern hills

dawn arrives with birdsong and grace 

here in the springtime the sun sets in the cleft between hills

while these breasts of earth are still rocky and dry

and you can never know when the rain will come

here you learn gratitude

for each twilight

for each bit of tree dappled shade

for learning to walk between the spines

of nopales organos garambullos cardones

and a multitud of prickly fellow travelers of all kind 

whose names you have never learned

and even for those you have

here a droplet is never taken foregranted

cannot be taken foregranted

and yet still somewhere underground

rivers flow

here you learn to smell their waters with your skin

you are but a transient form on the landscape

here you learn to walk

—Lorena Wolfman

 

reflected light comes always from source 

as it continues to expand renews itself 

arising from the same source it has always been

as the aroma of the rose

never ceases being part of its first blossom

a star emits light to reveal a moon

a moon ilumines a noctural planet 

in vigil watching itself becoming

the invitation to sight 

as with music comes from deep within

even in her dreams 

darkness is the inevitable lover of light

she shows him off in his whole rainbow spectrum

as she watches in silent prayer

sight itself is both luminous and dark...

—Lorena Wolfman

"Matrilineage"

 

Water tiger dreams