Salt and Moon Rocks
Diver Van Avery

If I am being honest, I remind me of my salty enemies
I long for erasure of them, they long for erasure of me 
We meet in this way, in this way we are linked
My foes and my kin  
Seeking impossible endings of each other’s long existences

Just days ago, I walked on a trail in northern woods
where the large grey rocks I navigated around
were apparently rare rocks only otherwise found on the moon

I sweat and panted up the long ascent
Licked the salt from above my lips
At the end of exertion there was nothing left to do
But take in the long ridgeline view
The beauty stirred me so deep
I found myself in a premature grief
already mourning the devastation
wrought by the next big fire

But there was no fire.
There is no fire yet
In fact, there was nobody else
for miles and miles
Except my love and I
Two people my enemies seek to devastate  
Who, in the woods become simple
bodies of desire just walking
for miles and miles
talking and drinking water and peeing and walking

 Everywhere I looked, no fire
Everywhere I looked, small and large green beings
grew in every direction
each genus with its own histories of erasures and survivals
figuring out their species destiny in a larger succession

Because of it all that was intact
I laughed
What a funny thing I was doing
Catastrophizing a future fire
While putting my hood on
in the slow beginning of a quiet, cool rain

Against all I know about each and every impending threat
I surrendered my worry to the ridiculous joy stirred by wild beauty
humming love songs, salty but not bitter
dreaming up new stories I hope to write
full of care, communing with moon rock, no one enemy here
listening to the spring birds singing, shedding discontent
careful there, staying aware of where to plant each step
of our slow and steady eventual descent