ASTARTE in the Desert

With age,

I’ve learned to watch my feet.

I’ve become cautious of falls,

the honest frailty of bones,

and equally fragile,

the choices found at every crossroad.

Time, I’ve discovered, makes us bend -

we learn the habit of looking down.

I was blessedly nowhere,

At a truck stop off I-40 falling off the edge of the world.

A nameless little desert town,  disappearing

into a sweet black halcyon midnight

I was blessedly nowhere,

just between “here” and “there” after a summer rain,

the smell of diesel and chaparral, 

black reflecting  pools
on hot asphalt beneath my feet

when You

made your gracious, puddled descent:

     Luminous Orion,

     and faithful Sirius, the dog star,

     Antares, the Scorpion’s tail,

     The Pleiades dancing forever

     in Indra’s shining jewel net,

     And the Big Dipper

     offering, offering forever

Looking up, I heard you singing:

"Wait for me, Wait for me"

Lauren Raine

2005
from "Aphrodite in Brooklyn and Other Mythic Voices"