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If you asked an Elizabethan What are you on? he or she would have answered The earth, this terrestrial globe whereas today it means What medication are you taking? (Are you taking has less energy than What medication it is an anticlimax without a climax) And today What are you on about? would have sounded like What are you of thereabouts in? and will So what medications are you on? I am taking italics it pokes a hole in whatever is going to be so I can slip through and not have arms and legs all the time You've lost me and I'm not even an Elizabethan That's O.K. neither am I though both of us bestride this terrestrial globe and fain would lie down for the earth is a medication a giant pill we ride on like the aspirin in the poem I wrote in 1966 and didn't understand until last night or was it this morning A.M. and P.M. are medications I take one in the morning and one in the evening Some day people will look back at the twentieth century and think How backward they were the way some look back now at tribal societies and say But primitive life was so dirty how could you keep things clean? not knowing that tribal people lived in the Garden of Eden comparatively speaking That is they had more humanity than later people who traded theirs for technology so that those people who look back at Earth some day from a distant galaxy will not be people at all comparatively speaking they will be cue balls But this morning I am not in a billiard situation the sun is shining onto my house and the trees are feeling like their tops because they are still in the Garden of Eden that is the gentle endless hush of an endless mother to her endless newborn child Things are there covered with sparkles that have nothing to do with sunlight the way one night I got out of bed and found that I was covered with sparkles very small ones I wondered if I would be covered with sparkles the rest of my life and if other people had them But these are not the same sparkles that things have on them except the ocean sometimes at night By day the ocean moves away from where it was but a mountain does not Somewhere in between lies Hidden Valley where Grandpa comes out of his cabin and staggers around the dooryard then goes back inside where Grandma is holding a baking tin of fresh hot biscuits but she will give him none Give me some biscuits he cries but she smiles and shakes her head They are all for me she exults and then laughs she is only joking Grandpa sits down at the table and pretends to be dead revived only by die muffled thud of the biscuit tin Where's mah coffee he roars even though he sees it in the cup before him and Grandma says We're plumb out That's how the day begins in Hidden Valley But where are the grandchildren They are scattered about the world in jagged pieces that move like birds in spring with colors and speedometers on them Someday they will return to Hidden Valley and form another mountain to make Hidden Valley even more hidden when the waterfall closes over it You think I don't know where it is or is that just a ploy to get me to tell you? You are like the guy who looked all over for his hat and later learned it was on his head but it didn't mean anything until he realized he had a head and that the hat was both on and inside it and when he did it was not a rabbit that he pulled out but a rectangle in which the rabbit was imprisoned You don't want to be that guy, do you? You would rather be the rabbit when all along you could have been the waterfall We move ahead in our story to five years later then we move five years back because there is no story only a collection of events with no beginning, no end, and therefore no middle, it is all one big beginning, middle, and end every second and though you are in it you are also to the side like an actor waiting in the wings for the cue that will cause the stage to light up and expand though it is also the cue for the audience to rise and head for the exits, because they are the real players and you, it turns out, are part of the scenery propped up against a wall, gathering dust along your top ridge, for soon you will be transported to Hidden Valley and placed among the other mountains One of these mountains is the Earl of Essex covered with the crud of having galloped all the way across Wales and England nonstop Essex who dashed up the palace stairs and barged into Elizabeth's private chamber unannounced —where no man had ever set foot— midst the gasps and cries of her ladies-in-waiting and there it is his face on the front of his head and her face coming off her head and starting toward him because she knew right then his head would be severed from his body but what she did not know is that he too would end up in Hidden Valley raining down his sparkles upon the house of Grandma and Grandpa Are you enjoying your vacation Yes I am in fact so much that I don't even think of it as a vacation or as anything else and come to think of it I don't even think of it it's just the way things are How about you Yes I too am enjoying my vacation Well good Silence What you just said about your vacation I'm not sure I understand what you mean I didn't mean much of anything I guess The mountains around here have a way of making me not think very much maybe because they aren't thinking at all who knows and I tend to become like whatever I'm around But you're always around air do you turn into air Yes I'm always air What about Grandma and Grandpa are you turning into them No I can't turn into them I already am them Well that is very interesting but I have to scoot along now And a fine day to you as well Ireland rose up on the horizon backlit by history but Hidden Valley was too powerful it made Ireland sink back down though the voices of Ireland could be heard in the distance some singing others laughing and some wailing and scolding and then they too faded when Grandpa brandished his lips at them for he wished to sing himself and all alone on the veranda of his own personality the one built partly by him and partly by the celestial carpenters who found his scratchy gurgling caterwauling arias to be as astonishing as he found them to be beautiful and moving— arias that caused tears to gush forth from the sky you could see when you looked up into his eyes not long after you were born the sky at night and professional wrestling was on TV Antonino Rocca bounded around the ring evading horrible huge guys who fought dirty the kind you would find only in New York City when it was in black and white little Antonino who looked like a short-order cook in a diner but who dodged and slid and leaped so fast the horrible big guys couldn't catch him but when they did, Ow! Get away, Antonino! and he came back to life and slithered free and hurled the big guys down and one-two-three boom they were pinned and once more he smiled at people like us out in the middle of nowhere prompting Grandpa to clear his throat and say It's time for bed it's way past time and it was but we were hidden outside of time and no one would know because they were visible inside of time I was happy in Hidden Valley happy enough and I'm happy I once lived there Maybe I'll find myself there again someday even though the mountains will be gone and the rest changed beyond all recognition

My memory of a perfect scent: pine, sage, and cypress; My friends' faith in the power of rough and winding paths to take me up a mountain and bring me back. Specimens plucked from that mountain's pastures: Indian paintbrush, sego lily, ordinary wildflowers. How I got them is a story of friendship and passion Nancy, now a doctor, once a shy sophmore in college Her husband Mike, the second, better one, and their obsession with the Great Outdoors—hence an Idaho address. Boise's Northend is a throwback to neighborhoods American—nice homes Next to two-story garden apartments down the street from a mansion. Bikes and dogs and hand-pushed lawn mowers. Where they dwell is a bungalow that spirits Memphis, Tennessee circa 1971: The Who blasting off a turntable, marijuana-scented air, boys with long hair, girls wearing their boyfriends' blue jeans, bourbon and acid. Paperbacks, record albums, text books piled up—azaleas on the parkway; a howl of buzzing bees late spring just before graduation. Their bungalow has dueling computers and a real backyard. While Nancy and Mike's boxes are slowly being unpacked, Their bicycles are carefully racked inside their front door. Everyone is a thief out West. If you leave your bikes on the porch They disappear. If you find water, someone else will divert it. There are those who fight about the wind. Others the sun. All angling for rights—mineral, water, air—that only comes with political power. Oh, my friends who love to hike, to ski, to bike and me, they love Are driving me from Boise to Ketchum through mountain and valley beauty. High desert heat is clear, dry and when your body rises out of  a chilly car, BLAM. From there you enter another air conditioning zone: a general store at the edge of mountain lore. This place has everything from Bibles to good bourbon. I almost bought a foot long sausage. I almost bought a gun. I did buy cowboy postcards, mostly made for fun. Food and security. Winter just over the ridge, four weeks hence. I used to watch Death Valley Days. Death was hinted, but not shown—the wagon turned over, The wagon train a going. O, those long-suffering white people fearful of Indians and scared of bandits, desperate for shade, for water, for land flowing milk and honey. Hard-bitten men and sad-eyed women trekking. How grand those verdant acres were to be. What they got was land just green enough for wandering herds of long-horned beasts and no where to farm, no where to hide. Today, the wind machines whip around:                         BIG ENERGY. Horses gambol and graze on that patch of land or this keen slope. No wheat and corn, not even dope grows here. But silver, gold, treasures unknown lode these mountains inviting speculation, misery, and bad legislation. A few miles up from Sun Valley, we enter a trail. Mike and Nancy smile and cajole. Straw hat and baseball cap attest to sun's plenty. Their walking sticks to the rocks' ready challenge to ankles and limbs. Our water pouches are overflowing. What were my friends thinking? We slip and slide on the side of this mountain and step aside for the sculpted women in tank tops and biker shorts—trotting as fast as Nancy and Mike's favorite dog She runs ahead following the blonde beauties until all is shadow. We greet each other with glee. I am the novice hiker. I am afraid of falling into thin air. One large Black woman with a bum knee. What were they thinking? She will love the smell. Pine, sage, and cypress. She will love the sound. Wind shakes aspens. Water crinkles rock She will love the sight. Wildflowers—whites, yellows, purples and reds: Indian paintbrush, sego lily, the wily cinquefoil. When friends give you what you need, what more can you ask? Oh the pleasure in a mountain's power to quiet a panicked heart. The glade refined. Hawk's home, wolf's dream, bears far away. Stewards of American beauty—these are the paths my friends make in wild places —the rise and fall of future walks. I salute their obsession for Idaho's red undulating hills. Whose mountain ranges east to west like those in the Himalayas says a guidebook, but ours is a different story—in this young mountain, on these new hills, circumspect is the American West. Where people steal a drop of ore, a native flower, a piece of splendor day in and day out.

What became of the dear strands of hair pressed against the perspiration of your lover's brow after lovemaking as you gazed into the world of those eyes, now only yours? What became of any afternoon that was so vivid you forgot the present was up to its old trick of pretending it would be there always? What became of the one who believed so deeply in this moment he memorized everything in it and left it for you?

In winter, it is what calls us from seclusion, through endless snow to the end of a long driveway where, we hope, it waits— this letter, this package, this singing of wind around an opened door.

I doubt . . . this is where I find it extremely difficult . . . no government worth its salt plans to massacre its people. No. What could have happened is something went wrong when they were on the ground. — Bethuel Kiplagat, Chair of  Kenya’s Truth,  Justice and Reconciliation Commission, indicted for involvement in the 1984 Wagalla Massacre of 5,000 Somali Kenyans by the Kenyan government Wa gal la a howl the wind stole Wa ga lla tongues torn out at roots wagallawagallawagallawa a swallowing of children thrust under thorn bushes choked on dust Wagalla a city of silence risen out of desert built of bodies

For Peter S. I saw the shrouds of prisoners like baptismal gowns buried outside the cemetery. On the canvas frills exhaled singed wool and cardboard. The angels arrived as lace. Took notes, then stuck. Awful residue from a small cut. • The veil has been ripped from the skin where it was burned in. The skin is the veil, the baby-material, imprinted on, as if one dropped the handkerchief and it was one’s wrist. The cuff is frightening. Stuffed onto oil. Water-stains might fence its ghost in. • “The barbed wire complex” I understand. Winged and flattened at the same time, poor things! Some leftover specters of blood. Remember Blake’s figures like columns with heads looking around for God? When events are not as random as they seem. • The article of clothing is only half there, it’s not full, but when it falls forward, it is. Terrible emptiness of the spread neckline and little sleeve. Half-cooked squares. Was this religious fire and is this where it passed? Maybe they are floating on water of paint, pool-sized, blue and ridged like foam. You would have to fly to see them flat as a map. The rib and hem. Rained on for eons. Noah’s children’s floating forms. • Angels die? It’s a frightening-miracle because here they are. The Upper God has let them drop like centuries into space. And I recognize them!

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I want a red dress. I want it flimsy and cheap, I want it too tight, I want to wear it until someone tears it off me. I want it sleeveless and backless, this dress, so no one has to guess what’s underneath. I want to walk down the street past Thrifty’s and the hardware store with all those keys glittering in the window, past Mr. and Mrs. Wong selling day-old donuts in their café, past the Guerra brothers slinging pigs from the truck and onto the dolly, hoisting the slick snouts over their shoulders. I want to walk like I’m the only woman on earth and I can have my pick. I want that red dress bad. I want it to confirm your worst fears about me, to show you how little I care about you or anything except what I want. When I find it, I’ll pull that garment from its hanger like I’m choosing a body to carry me into this world, through the birth-cries and the love-cries too, and I’ll wear it like bones, like skin, it’ll be the goddamned dress they bury me in.

You know, the white guy In the film version of Raisin In The Sun, Pudgy balding head, Who comes to tell The black family Not to move to the White Chicago suburb. The man who smiles With the knife, Who IS a knife, But fools them for A second, because They’re looking at him The way he expects Them to look at him. Later, as they mop Up the blood, they replay What he said: that he Was elected by his neighbors, Because he’s the guy that Can get his foot in the door, Whipped and rumpled, Like he’s been apologizing Since he popped out of his Mother’s womb, like he’s a Close, personal friend of sorry. He’s sorry now, in his wilted suit. This is the way the knife Gets through the door, and He sits there, as they Think, maybe he ain’t a Knife in sheep clothes, baaa Baaa, baaa; such a foolish-looking, Goofy little white guy. A small part of them, quietly Embarrassed they’re even Thinking that about him. They can barely hold their Manners in check, and that’s His trick, the trick of the knife You don’t see until you’re cut. And the strangest thing About this, the damn thing Is how meek he still looks After he cuts, and cuts again. Dun as a female robin, His tongue slices and whittles. He is singing the song of his Brood; money if you stay, Fire if you come, as they think: How did a white robe, a tinder cross, And goon’s club trot through Their door? A pack of Dobermans Couldn’t have done a neater job, Except that Dobermans of course, never Apologize.

To yield force to is an act of necessity, not of will; it is at best an act of prudence. —Jean-Jacques Rousseau If you hear gunfire on a Thursday afternoon, it could be for a wedding, or it could be for you. Always enter a home with your right foot; the left is for cemeteries and unclean places. O-guf! Tera armeek is rarely useful. It means Stop! Or I’ll shoot. Sabah el khair is effective. It means Good morning. Inshallah means Allah be willing. Listen well when it is spoken. You will hear the RPG coming for you. Not so the roadside bomb. There are bombs under the overpasses, in trashpiles, in bricks, in cars. There are shopping carts with clothes soaked in foogas, a sticky gel of homemade napalm. Parachute bombs and artillery shells sewn into the carcasses of dead farm animals. Graffiti sprayed onto the overpasses: I will kell you, American. Men wearing vests rigged with explosives walk up, raise their arms and say Inshallah. There are men who earn eighty dollars to attack you, five thousand to kill. Small children who will play with you, old men with their talk, women who offer chai— and any one of them may dance over your body tomorrow.