new year

Robert Kelly poem to Ashley Garrett

Happy New Year, dear Ashley!

When the pen is loaded

the rodeo begins,

is that your horse

hopping over the hill?

Is that your wine-glass

shattered on the boulder,

your straw hat perched

on a saguaro,

how wise you are

to carry a desert

in your purse

so everywhere you go

you can at need or at will

suddenly have space,

huge space around you—

is that your slender hand

even now drawing the horizon?

—Robert Kelly