Poetry by Elizabeth Gunn

Blue

the desert has plans for us – 

meanwhile, by hand tools, oceanographers 

and botanists brush away pink sand

            a field lens and a seed press    then a collection number     then a genus and species

meaning-making

and other important notes…

illogically, moss, syntrichia caninervis, discovers its way here 

where we trade vintage dipping bowls

filled by Boötes Void             no center,    no edge

now chlorophyll

to green vascular moss with its woody, clean aroma    crawls

with our thick, orange sun toward    milky quartz

through which light slides – 

                                                            come over here

                                                                        where moss grabs life without center, without edge

                                                                        where I love you without center, without edge – 

                                                                        as a Greenland shark swims for centuries

                                                                        without center, without edge – 

its immutable meditation

like the moon’s sizes and shapes…yellow, orange, pink, white, and nowhere moon 

always in meditative practice

hugging our deep-rooted, unbroken desert that has plans for us – 

            canyons   sea-beds   illogical desire unfixing 

this incomprehensive world

into warm light –

and here are our vintage dipping bowls…an offer now

teeming with mossy life finding a way     as we, too, rearrange

atoms across the midnight void     readying moon’s next    vow

            the desert has a plan            for us – 

                                                                                                             can you see

              my love?

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Elizabeth S. Gunn (www.elizabethsgunn.com) serves as the Dean of the School of Arts, Sciences, and Business at Nevada State University. She writes poetry and fiction in Henderson adjacent to the endless Mojave Desert.