Poetry vault: Three Times Coming Home

It's my desert-iversary.

By Zach Hively

This week marks the anniversary of my return to New Mexico, where I was born and where I grew as tall as I’d ever get—where I didn’t appreciate my surroundings until I left and came back and left again and came back again—where I needed to return to settle into myself.

It’s the same week when I moved into the house I’d been fixing up for a summer. I needed New Mexico again, but I didn’t want the city this time. I wanted mountains with nearly nothing between me and them but crows and smoke from someone’s brush burn. I wanted space to think and breathe and maybe sometimes disappear, for a while.

I found a space to write more poetry than I ever had.

​These poems are some of the ones that came out in this headspace and heartset. They are from a suite called “Five Times Coming Home."

Other People

They worry about me being here
as clear as snake tracks in the sand.

As if I will tire
of reading worn stones
and could ever translate
the strata of stories
in the walls sheered
by guerilla floods
and illuminated by
the roots of cedars,
patient monks.

As if I could ever smell
over the next ridge
to my satisfaction
and finish tallying the stars
on my walls
like the count of my days.

As if I need more
than myself
and the indifferent welcome
​of this, my companion land.

---

Untaming

feral mind, feral heart
rocks dirt trees

fire and sky, moon and sun
the flow and ebb

turning toward, drawing away
where is the wild man

the shapeshifter
with smoke and stories

has he forgotten himself here
no mistakes

more serious than joy
reacquainted with feet and hands

find the sky again
grow thick with quiet

continue choosing
turning toward

to feel it all all
ways of being

are not exclusive
lay them bare

​again
and always

---

Querencia

My way
is not the
only
way.

I must learn
from other ways
to test and hone
my ways,

to make way
for those other ways
any way
I can.

There is
no right way
to love
this place

or let it
love me back,
to test and hone
me and stun

me with
an evening flower
or a print
in the snow,

to make way
for others
as others
made way

for me.