Fall 2007 / Spring 2008

The Big Eye

by Tom O'Connor

On the roadside, the park service painted Death
Valley Survival Hints on a wood coffin...

But tourists still flock to deserts at Christmas, Easter.
To names like Devil's Playground, Poison

Wells... Or, to the Guadalupe Pass where
winds scream a truck right off

the highway... Where, I now drive with a cooler
packed with oranges, condensed-milk sandwiches,

Smart Water. At night, temperatures drop
as if drunk, mixing with the Milky Way's

opium clouds. Cactus-needles slink in the dark,
begging you to hallucinate. In arctic deserts,

lonely travelers called this the big eye
or the thousand yard stare. Without water,

people will bite into scorpions, drink urine, or
suck their own blood to try and cool blackened,

swelling tongues. Some even run naked right
at coyote packs or saguaros. The only safety here

is a hard shell, a car, a gun, a cave. And yet,
hill-side petroglyphs flaunt herds

of deer dancing in noon sun with warriors...
These stone-painters understood the desert's power,

where earthquakes crack continental shores,
the plains, and flash floods carve slot canyons—

where wind chisels sand and rock to butte,
pedestal to stalk. Here, free of thunder clouds

& street lights, telescopic eyes chart the stillness
of deep skies: where nomads spread their myths

across horizons. In the distance:
chimneys shimmer, the city limits. I stare

at a splash of galaxies. The desert, in secret,
distills its tonics—sage, peyote, mescal,

aloe, and ancient tales like the Aborigine creation-
myth The Dreaming: our ancestors' fishing,

fighting, hunting, and sex shaped the sea, the land
along this songline: by the forking tree,

you'll remember everything you've seen.