colorado "fever"

...I go into the desert
Thistle, till I'm stopped
Like an obsidian statue.
The slow rise of below
Sea level to the Rockies,
Where I sleepwalk among
Headshops with false doors
Outside Red Rocks. I weigh my life
Against the evening sky
Orange as dinosaur dung
In scraggly ravines,
Before putting an ear to Cheyenne Mountain
To divide Ute horses,
Chief Joseph.
...Some nights I lie
Awake, staring into a promised land.
A cold wind out of Wyoming
Works my mind, like waves
Against stone, sand and willpower.
I don't know if I can ride
Out the slack, can just float
Along a precipice of indifference.
I can't trust my hands with loved ones,
The drum under my skin
Driven by a burning field. Trees
Stand like a death squad
Hemmed in by juniper and yucca.
Wanderlust, beds where
Unhealing is a religion.
I pray for those who work
Earth down to a blank stare
Up at the Colorado sky...

excerpts of "Fever" - Yusef Komunyakaa