Sagebrush Sutra

During a drought, its favorite climate,
it smells bitter as an old dollar bill,
the kind soda machines won't take.
It is ubiquitously ugly, and the color
of the last place in the world.
It's why lizards mate, and antelope,
who are faster than cheetahs, never run.

It's the only lover of rattlesnakes
and living death to certain kinds of rain.
It's where chalky soil finds a home
and cactus a brother. It's the holy bush
without fire, the devil's pillow when he's tired.

It's the end of civilization and the beginninng
of what we can't imagine.
It is where artists find their inspiration
and how they lose it.
It was the first thing to grow outside
the Garden, and the last thing to die
before the Apocalypse.

It is not heart, not mind, not Buddha
even when everything else is.
It's why cats make the same awful violin sound
when they fight or fuck,
and why dogs far away bark
at nothing on the quietest nights.

It has something to do with jet engines
and a little with unmarked cars.
It is the absolute proof of E=Mc2,
the certitude in the uncertainty principle,
and concrete evidence of God's existence.
It took root in the last second before the Big Bang
and is the secret material found in Cupid's arrows,
and Thor's hammer, and the last thing,
beneath hope, in Pandora's box.

It's a reedy, pungent bush,
that doesn't care a fig about us,
and yet if we ignore it, we miss
one of the gateless gates to heaven
on earth.

copyright 2007 Burton Bradley
bio
Barnwood magazine
Contents 07