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Crazy Creek Camp Chair
Backpacking trip, mother and daughter, furtive coyote prowling
for short grouse. We plan to arrive at dusk, trade places, she hikes
front, I behind. We are close to the same height and weight but
I am wobbly on this jagged mountain range, a ledge, 9,100 feet,
seeking a campsite. It's May, and she is tall, eclipsing me, it can't be
helped. I am in her long shadow now, frustrated by her easy pace.
I slip behind to find a walking stick, imagine how the swirling hot
chocolate I’ll prepare will ease the aches of sleeping on the ground,
but she, she loves to sleep outdoors. How deceived she is, by our
sixteen-year routine, mother and daughter bundled side by side
in matching sleeping bags, expecting me to erect the tent, prime
the stove, the usual exchange. The meadow is yet beaten down and
a fresh-cheeked sunset chokes the joys of flowery smiles peeking
through the snow. I know the creek will sleep tonight. I’m not so far
behind, and the old birds sing in the new grass with winter’s last breath.
Ruth Nolan, Palm Desert
Desert Lullaby
Our gravel has no color, and our flat scraped yard, no grass:
even the lowest deadpan desert of the Colorado River Valley
sinks to winter gloom, these days, a dull voice of dead nerves,
words frozen on the tongue, fingers glued shut to the bones.
I've hung the holiday lights on the sword armed cactus tree,
and I'm proud I've avoided a single puncture wound; I'd gather
armfuls of wailing blood red blooms in June, and sit in silence
as the fat hummingbirds suck them dry and dance with a mate.
But now the light is gone, and our world is stone at 4:00 p.m.
The sunset barely stutters; the daughter begs my frozen words.
A few colored stars punctuate the blank of this stiff-jerk plateau,
promising to last the deepest nights, our little Christmas world
Ruth Nolan
White Lie
Every cheerful smile of sunrise, I see water on the dry lakebed
spread across the desert floor in a lover's lingering embrace.
The mirage is not entirely true. The sun will be cruel too soon,
110 degrees and rising at noon. I only pretend to drink my fill.
Better to sink into the shadows, like rattlesnakes in the sand
as packs of thieving coyotes lope into their dens and caves,
tongues hanging low. Come nightfall I'll suckle the heat
listen to a full moon howl bald-faced lullabies to the dunes.
Ruth Nolan
76530 California Drive
Palm Desert CA 92211
runolan@aol.com
(760) 964-9767
The elegant sand dunes
shift in the parched breeze,
rearranging themselves in
fine-edged, smooth faced curves,
One day, I will walk there
and pretend to drink my fill.
Then, water-logged, I will be
consumed by fire and wind.
But time will slip like sand,
and the hourglass promises
will evaporate while ravens
lose track of morning songs.
12.29.99
I awoke in the middle of the night
in spasms,
arching upwards
from the small of my back
right
about the time
you were writing a poem
to me.
I was scared,
my stomach burning,
thirsty and crying,
my nightlight
dimmed out. I stumbled
to the kitchen wondering
how I could feel so alive
in such darkness.
Author Biography
Ruth Nolan is Associate Professor of English at College of the Desert and advisor of the Solstice Literary Magazine.
She is the author of the poetry chapbook Wild Wash Road, and co-founder of Petroglyph Press, which publishes chapbooks and books related to California's Inland Empire and desert areas. She is currently
editing a collection of desert literature from the California desert for Heyday Books (Berkeley, CA.) She grew up in Apple Valley, in the Mojave Desert, where she worked for the BLM as a firefighter, and
now lives in Palm Desert. Nolan served as one of the jury for the first Sun Runner Desert Writers Issue.
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