CHAPARRAL RUNNING

Schlerophytic shrubs
Their leaves packed with
Cuticular waxes
And other bioactive substances;

This thorned and barbed
Foliage endemic in Chaparral
Suffers the parched end
Of summer.

Colors change:
Pink to red, orange to brown
Where the seed heads of buckwheat
Were once a snowy white.

Flesh is Scratched, Pierced
As here, the Earth’s mantle
Stirs reflexively in its heat induced
Coma.

Words fail:
The linguistic images of things 
Vanish into the things themselves
Their meaning felt not thought. 

Forgetting, sleep and death are all
Manifestations of disappearance.
One forgets one goes to sleep and one dies.
One remembers, one awakes and one is born. 

Coma? This is sleep
Not Death.
This is Presence
Not Forgetting.

Chaparral is not disappearing:
Pink to red, orange to brown
Remembering seed heads of buckwheat
That once were snowy white.

There is no forgetting in this
Chaparral sleep. 
Cicatrice by cicatrice
Remembrance is written in the flesh.

Sampled texts:
Lines 18-20, David Abram
Lines 21-24, Valentin Tomberg
Line 35, Anne Carson