Deserts
vi.
The thing about desert is how dark the shadow can be
under two juniper trees with a petrified log and moss under
my feet. I am amazed how you love the darkness in me.
vii.
A thing is not a thing, and here in the desert we hear
how everything sings. Each sage is its own being, every
yellow bloom, and this desert rose rising pink from the ants
with succulent plant-- there has never been nor will there
be another one alive exactly at this time like this.
viii.
In the desert it’s easy to see your path, the sand stretches
from the eye and you can relax, no enemies, no sudden
ambush from a copse of trees. I want to be open to you
like this, let you see all my western cedar miles before
you meet her, anticipate her smell and height and width.
ix.
Here is where I said, Should we turn back? And you said no,
You see that rise? So we kept going. I have learned to trust
your eyes. And while the path looked the same up close as
where we were before, when we got there, cliffs rose
in the distance. And that made all the difference.
x.
I can’t recall who saw it first, but it’s clear that it was for you.
Tender red metal horseshoe rising from the desert floor, you hold
it gently with your fingers and brush the sand from crevices as
you have done with me, letting go of all that has come before.
History lasts long like this, and we need someone to carry it.
vi.
The thing about desert is how dark the shadow can be
under two juniper trees with a petrified log and moss under
my feet. I am amazed how you love the darkness in me.
vii.
A thing is not a thing, and here in the desert we hear
how everything sings. Each sage is its own being, every
yellow bloom, and this desert rose rising pink from the ants
with succulent plant-- there has never been nor will there
be another one alive exactly at this time like this.
viii.
In the desert it’s easy to see your path, the sand stretches
from the eye and you can relax, no enemies, no sudden
ambush from a copse of trees. I want to be open to you
like this, let you see all my western cedar miles before
you meet her, anticipate her smell and height and width.
ix.
Here is where I said, Should we turn back? And you said no,
You see that rise? So we kept going. I have learned to trust
your eyes. And while the path looked the same up close as
where we were before, when we got there, cliffs rose
in the distance. And that made all the difference.
x.
I can’t recall who saw it first, but it’s clear that it was for you.
Tender red metal horseshoe rising from the desert floor, you hold
it gently with your fingers and brush the sand from crevices as
you have done with me, letting go of all that has come before.
History lasts long like this, and we need someone to carry it.
"Tracing her honeymoon journey from steamy South Carolina to the snowcapped mountains, the powerful Pacific, ancient forests, painted deserts, and endless waterfalls of Oregon, Cassie Premo Steele’s Beautiful Waters captures the imagery and the magic of the modern transcontinental journey and the wonder one feels when experiencing Oregon’s stunning and varied terrain for the first time."
-Melissa N. Stuckey, Ph.D., Historian and former professor at the University of Oregon
"With the intense precision of short lines and clipped sentences, these poems come together to form a travel narrative in the voice of a newly married woman who is attuned to all of the beauty and tension that belong to this place."
-Katie Manning, Ph.D., Founding Editor of Whale Road Review and author of Tasty Other, Winner of the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award
"Cassie Premo Steele mesmerizes with language that ‘ripples of green blood’ as she maps the ‘badlands’ of love, taking us on a voyage through history, matriarchy, the body, ‘surf crashing in like a diagnosis.’"
–Meg Tuite, author of Lined Up Like Scars
-Melissa N. Stuckey, Ph.D., Historian and former professor at the University of Oregon
"With the intense precision of short lines and clipped sentences, these poems come together to form a travel narrative in the voice of a newly married woman who is attuned to all of the beauty and tension that belong to this place."
-Katie Manning, Ph.D., Founding Editor of Whale Road Review and author of Tasty Other, Winner of the 2016 Main Street Rag Poetry Book Award
"Cassie Premo Steele mesmerizes with language that ‘ripples of green blood’ as she maps the ‘badlands’ of love, taking us on a voyage through history, matriarchy, the body, ‘surf crashing in like a diagnosis.’"
–Meg Tuite, author of Lined Up Like Scars