Joan E. Bauer | After a Sign in Joshua Tree: Tortoise Crossing

I’m not a rock climber. I don’t eat psychedelics.
I never wore tie-dye—even in the Sixties.

I’m not a UFOlogist. I never probed a mine shaft
or owned a quartz bowl, but this spring

at the crossroads of the Mojave & Colorado Deserts,
I found a magic scarf.

*

The bristly-armed Joshua can live for 500 years.
Moths lay eggs on their white-green flowers.

First to see the otherworldly Yucca, the Pinto People,
when a sluggish river still crossed the Mojave.

Mormons named the ‘trees’ for the Biblical Joshua
lifting his hands to heaven in prayer. Then came

gold miners who dug, hell-bent with pick-axe
& shovel, leaving behind their shanty towns.

*

At Joshua Tree Inn, a shrine to Gram Parsons who died there
at 26 from a stupendous load of morphine & booze.

We stayed once in Room 8 where he’s memorialized
with Byrds’ posters, beer bottles, guitar picks, vinyl & sage.

*

We now stay at the budget Safari Inn. Ravi & Jasmine
are gracious. The king bed is firm, the room clean & modest.

At night, we drive beyond the town’s lights to star-gaze.
In the desert, I’m a tortoise—with a magic scarf.

Copyright 2024 Joan E. Bauer. First published in Voices from the Attic (Carlow University, 2023)

Joan E. Bauer‘s poetry collections include Fig Season (Turning Point, 2023). She divides her time between Venice, CA and Pittsburgh, PA where she co-curates the Hemingway’s Summer Poetry Series with Kristofer Collins.