TRANSCRIPT

I’m Maggie Smith, and this is The Slowdown.

If you’ve been listening to this podcast or following my work, you might know I’ve lived in the Columbus, Ohio, area all my life — smack dab in the heart of the Midwest. Central Ohio is notoriously flat and green, with hot, humid summers and bleak, wet winters. But there was a time when I thought I might live very far away from here, in a completely different landscape and climate: the Sonoran Desert.

One of the MFA programs I seriously considered, and visited, was at the University of Arizona in Tucson. I remember seeing that part of the country for the first time and being amazed at how strange it was compared to what I was used to. The dirt was orange-red! It was like walking on Mars, I thought. And the mountains and canyons, the trees, the plants, the birds — nothing looked or felt familiar.

I remember writing in my notebook about the silver mesquite branches, the Creosote trees, the cacti, and the gnarled junipers and tough little shrubs. I remember traveling to Sedona and the Grand Canyon and marveling at the colorful bands of rock — red, orange, purple, brown. It was like standing inside of a panoramic photograph. It didn’t feel real!

Landscape is psychological. It impacts how we feel, how we see ourselves, how we understand our experience. When you change the landscape, you change everything!

And even though I didn’t move to Arizona, the idea of those changes are still thick in my memories. What an exciting mental exploration, to consider how we could transform. Even just by exploring in our minds, we can discover other desires and perspectives that may have been hidden to us in the lives we consider stable, consider guaranteed.

Today’s poem takes me back to the desert and reminds me of what we can learn about ourselves in new places.

Advice to a Monolith
by Talley V. Kayser

To mirror the desert, you must wear away.
I learned this on a long walk, long ago.

My skin went dark past bronze. My hair grew dust.
Sun washed my clothes into rock-colored gauze. 

When only the wet of my eyes and mouth
could reveal me—suddenly bighorn

bimbled cliffs. Suddenly lions
eased among the creosote. I learned

to be gentler when shaking scorpions
from my boots. To mirror this desert

you need an edge you trust 
to crumble, need to feel 

each blooded life surviving desert
as your kindred. Desert will pit you

against winds you cannot withstand
by standing. Desert will topple all your light

with greater light. Desert will swallow 
whole your pilgrims. Look how alien

you are—I say your glare
is no protection and less art. I say

desert (fiercer art)
will not abide reflection. 

"Advice to a Monolith" by Talley Kayser. Used by permission of the poet.