Ocotillo, do you remember the night
I slept with you and dreamt with you with sweet dreams
of love under desert stars in the season
of Sevwa, the Blossoming of Trees

Your beauty drawing me delirious
out of undulating desert, gorgeously
you offered me your blossoms, and I ate them
gorgeously; and for one night, one sacred night,
you satisfied my hunger for a love that lasts

forever. Ocotillo, more lovely than
a man, better by far than all his countless,
heartless machines, or anything which man
and machinery in depraved conspiracy
have wrought; Ocotillo, I call upon you,
I address you by your Cahuilla name –

Utush! Utush! Utush!

And my blood begins to quicken,
and my body begins to heal,
and I tell you now that you may
know forever: you are beloved
of me immensely –

Utush! Utush! Utush!

I give to you a dowry of eternal
Love that you blossoms may bloom a deeper hue
of red: precarious this vessel; when it tilts
and spills its liquid cargo, drink in, drink in
the nectar of my veins, and vouch me safe

this prayer of mine: when the winds of a thousand
canyons blow the never-ceasing sufferings
of the Earth over your blood-colored blossoms,
whisper softly, whisper me softly into
suffering’s ever-changing sacred soul.

little big pine
southwest us
july 2008

Little Big Pine: citizen, patriot, poet; may be reached at littlebigpine@gmail.com.