At the bathroom mirror of a rented casita somewhere in Flagstaff, I discover half the desert came home with me.
Red dust gathers along my collar, settles into the seams of my brown canvas backpack, which used to be cream-colored, and fills the tiny crease above my sock line where the trail outsmarted me.
When I untie my boots, sand pours onto ceramic tile in two soft cones.
The room suddenly feels like a painting, “Composition of Woman and Borrowed Earth.”
Juniper pollen clings to the cuffs of my sleeves.
There’s grit beneath my fingernails, iron-rich and stubborn, the color of old brick after rain.
OPI might name it Jazz Hands In the Desert.
I touch my scalp and feel dust there too, worked deep into my hair through wind, sweat, sunlight, and twelve miles of canyon trail.
Good.
Today earned its right to linger a little longer.
Some people spend all day trying not to stain themselves.
I understand the instinct.
There are white couches. Important emails. Polished shoes. Entire industries built around remaining untouched.
But somewhere between mile four and the moment I sat directly on a warm rock without checking for dust, my body remembered something older than neatness.
Children know it first.
Mud puddles. Finger paint. Grass stains.
At one point I crouched low to photograph a cluster of desert marigolds forcing themselves through fractured stone.
When I stood again, one palm carried sap, and a line of sweat ran slowly from my neck down the center of my spine.
Perfect.
By late afternoon, my shoulders glowed pink, my lips tasted faintly of salt and sunscreen, and every object inside my backpack had acquired the thin orange film of Arizona.
Even the map.
Especially the map.
I ate trail mix with dusty fingers and decided the extra crunch only improved it.
Somewhere near the ridge, a woman passing me said, “Beautiful day.”
Then both of us kept walking without needing to improve upon the sentence.
There's nothing important to say out there. Beauty speaks and we simply listen.
And feel. And I'm convinced—
The body experiences some landscapes on a cellular level.
Scientists eventually gave the phenomenon a long Latin name after discovering certain microorganisms in the soil can calm the nervous system.
Mycobacterium vaccae. But I think we should call it thereasonpeoplecry when kneeling in the dirt.
Meanwhile, every child who ever came home with muddy shoes was already conducting the experiment.
Back at the casita, the sink runs briefly orange-brown when I wash my hands.
Dust circles the drain.
I pull one sock inside out and enough sand falls free to start a small dune beside the bathmat.
I hope my Airbnb rating doesn't take a hit.
The shower waits.
Still, I linger a moment longer in the mirror, sun-tired, windblown, grinning slightly at the woman standing there with desert still gathered in every visible place.
Grand Canyon landscape reflecting recurring themes of resilience, transformation, spiritual geography, and memory in the poetry of Iris Lennox.
I recently created a new page called The Poetry and Themes of Iris Lennox, which explores some of the recurring imagery, spiritual landscapes, and questions that continue to shape the work.
The page traces themes of resilience, voice, desert geography, memory, theatre, and the sacred hidden inside ordinary life. It also gathers together several poems that have become central to the collection over time.
My little white cat stands at every doorway before she enters. Perhaps it is fear but I think it’s manners, and questions that steady her upon the threshold.
Is there anything here worth the risk it takes to leave the safety of the hallway, and what will I miss if I do?
No noise behind her, but I sit typing at my desk while she considers, a tiny pink nose weighing her options—
I say hello, which changes nothing, and now I weigh my kindness against her indifference as a thread moves across the floor, the air purifier beckoning it closer.
My little white cat enters not to see me but to inspect the thread and to maybe prove the room deserves her presence.
Patience by Iris Lennox
Moose Tracks are easier to eat in a bowl, but not nearly as engaging as racing to the drips spilling over the sides of my cone and knowing there are peanut butter cups gathering in the middle.
Why do the sweetest parts hide in the center?
No one eats M&Ms for the color, and you’d embarrass yourself if you dared say, “the peel is better than the orange.”
We all know some things ask to be opened— the banana from the stem, the shells at the baseball game, the foil around warm chocolate you forgot was in your pocket.
At least, for me, for today, for this moment,
all I need to do is taste sweetness with the patience of a toddler, unaware of the nature of stickiness,
and save the middle for later.
Father by Iris Lennox
He left before his first Father’s Day and mine.
But at least he left in style, with my mother’s car, all her cash, and glasses wrapped in a towel because they were worth keeping.
He worked in a bar and, from what I hear, he lived like he did.
At least that’s what strangers told me, each one carrying another adventure.
Someone up north. Another on the west coast. Then the east before he landed in Las Vegas.
The land of dreams won and lost all in the same night.
Sounds about right.
I met my father for the first time and the last one month before he died,
and every Father’s Day I try not to care.
Written in response to three words: curiosity, patience, father.
Iris Lennox 