Objective Observations Made During a Study of the Desert:


And so that here in the desert, day and night it continues so that one
of them opened his maw to swallow a range of mountains to the south
while others known to him danced passionately a slow dance in wherein
they fell in not slowly either but disappearing altogether all
together to the amazement amazingly of the ones who'd seen them do
that before those who approached so carefully that choice of abysses 
(-- how to systematically smash every connotation that word ever had to
get it back clean, healthy, vigorous, balanced -- ) the one abyss being
beauty the other being beauty rejected they who dive recklessly (clean
that word!) into one then the other abyss those who dive into both at
the same time none of them do not diive all of the do, dive. There.
There. A song there. In the color-changing mountains to the East. In
the distance. You swear you can hear it you swear it is sung by the
tribe whom you had hoped for you and hearing that song you began your
own dance but without feet without arms and only bodiless because your
body oh you had given it away only not yet retrieved it. Some people
think this is what happens in the desert at night when no one sees it.
They think that this life all retreats at dawn but that's not the case
this goes on day night in the desert side by side with suguaro for
example there grows a form of desert flora which dies at the same
exact precise simultaneous occurrence of its growth it is to this
plant which the tribe in the hills to the East sing their song or it
is from this plant which they derive their song and they -- the ones
who are singing  -- are not the one who swallowed the range of
mountains to show off the prodigy of his appetite no those the ones
who are singing they are the ones you had hoped for sun and moon there
they are their voices rising falling even in the windlessness in the
absolute stillness their voices covering the expanse over which both
sun and moon in the sky concurrently coexisting without moving while
around them all the stars 100,000,000,000,000 stars are exploding
reforming exploding reforming exploding this goes on during the day as
well as at night. Each day each night. Occassionally a bolt of
lightening will strike the oxidized unsalinated sandy desert floor
bringing with it a new charge of electrical organizing provocative
intelligence.

1/14/99