I stood at the glass door, watching.
Beyond the stone deck
and the birdhouse
two delicate blue eggs
lay nestled atop carefully arranged
blades of grass.
The field beyond the fence
was bright with spring.
A tree named Walter
lifted its branches into the morning.
Every tree within daily view
should have a name.
A dog bred to bear burdens
wandered lazily through the grass,
distracted by an over-dramatic cardinal
or maybe the way
the breeze had begun to smell like
spring.
The coffee in my mug tasted faintly
of hazelnut and milk.
Scrambled eggs cooled on a plate.
Cologne drifted through the kitchen.
The juice from a red grape
slid down the back of my throat.
The field was busy with singing.
Not birds alone.
Something larger.
Something hidden.
The busyness of living
moved through the grass
like wind moving through
tousled hair
or waves crossing the sea.
At the time,
I thought the field would always be there.
The eggs.
The cardinal.
Walter.
The dog.
The glass door.
The man standing somewhere behind me.
Months later
he disappeared.
Then the seasons continued
one second
one hour
one page
at a time.
Summer crossed the field.
Autumn followed.
Winter bent the grass flat.
One afternoon
I found myself standing
on the opposite side of the same field.
Far beyond the fence.
Far beyond the glass door.
Far beyond the woman
who used to stand in that kitchen
and watch.
The singing was gone.
The grass was gone.
The hill itself
seemed smaller.
Yellow machines moved through the earth
lifting,
turning,
leveling.
Steel teeth entered the ground.
Mud spread where pasture had been.
The field I remembered
was being dismantled
one scoop at a time.
A subdivision would stand there soon.
Roads.
Mailboxes.
Driveways.
Children who would never know
there had once been a field.
I watched for a long time.
Long enough for the machines
to continue their sweaty work.
Long enough to notice that
Walter was still standing.
Long enough to realize
that I was no longer looking
at the same landscape.
Or from the same place.
Or through the same eyes.
The field stretched between
what had happened
and what remained.
I stood,
watching the earth being turned over,
feeling the soil being turned over,
tasting the smoke and smothering
just a little.
"What if I take one step backward?"
I wondered.
"One more,"
I whispered.
Artifacts churned
deep and then deeper
burying and then
buried.
And I drove away
waving to Walter
in the rearview mirror.
— Iris Lennox
Inspired by Hamilton Creek in Wildwood, Missouri, “Hamilton Creek Bridge” is a contemporary nature poem by Iris Lennox about clear water, limestone, and the quiet forces that shape the landscape over time.
I stop where cedar shadows fall across the weathered rail, and lean above the narrow draw where water threads the shale.
It finds a seam the color of old bone beneath the moss, then slips between the sleeping stones without a splash or pause.
The creek is scarcely wide enough to trouble any map. A branch lets go. A single leaf drops through the sunlight’s trap.
It circles once in amber light, then catches in a bend where grains of sand, as bright as salt, begin their patient wend.
Rain gathers breath from oak and fern before it finds this place. It turns faintly acid as it falls against the limestone face.
Not all at once. One crystal first. One edge too small to see. A hollow deepens grain by grain beneath the sycamore tree.
A swallow skims. The bridge holds still. The afternoon grows warm. Below, the water keeps its hand around the selfsame form.
I watch it pass beneath my feet with neither haste nor sound, wearing through the living rock the way roots enter ground.
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 