Spiky

Amelie and Sawyer hike along the White Sands National Monument near El Paso, TX.

BY AMELIE RODE

​The morning of my first full day in the Praxedes volunteer house in El Paso, I charged out into the backyard to see what face Mother Nature puts on the desert.  I nearly ran outside barefoot like I’ve grown up doing in midwestern fields and grasses, but thought better of it at the last moment.  And wow, was I happy I did that when minutes later, smothered by the sun’s rays and walking about the sparse plot of dirt, Sawyer hollered, “Owww! Spikies!” I walked over to where she stood, near a dying cactus (a dying cactus!) and gave her a shoulder for support as she plucked spikies off her sandals and skin.  We treaded carefully after that as we walked around our desert willow and around the clothes lines, scraping off the bottom of our shoes before going back inside to the safety of fans, swamp coolers and treacherous-less terrain for bare feet.  From inside, I took another look out of living room window at the backyard, already confused and in awe from my very brief encounter with the desert.

Like with other human beans in this world, my spirituality revolves around nature. So, with this introduction to a desert landscape, I felt my concept of nature bending, expanding, wiggling – like a glob of jello – as I tried to imagine a couple things:

1)    how my spirituality would fall in with one of Mother Nature’s scarier (at least to me) faces - the desert, and
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2)    how I could continue to be increasingly aware of and considerate of those who occupied this land before colonization.
 
Since those first few days of the adjustment process (and trust me, ya Midwestern girl here is still adjusting), I have successfully made it out into nature-filled spaces.  And with these adventures, the two points above have been things I continue to explore.  Now, with all of this said, I’d like to share a couple poems I’ve written while in El Paso, because I believe they can best expand on where I’m currently at with these reflections on spirituality/nature.

First, a poem I wrote in my last semester of college in the Midwest, followed by two poems I’ve written since moving to El Paso:
 
Nature
Some call her mother.
Tickling grass,
soft pillows of moss,
tender butterfly kisses.
Yes, she knows
the power of these.
 
  
Nature’s Faces
Few call her mother
when she’s not soft
plush,
green,
but avoid her
full of spiked balls
that make bare feet
dribble red,
a hovering heat
bearing down,
dust, kicked up, that
covers a city.
Still, yes, she knows
the beauty of these.
 
 
White Sands
Knobbish toes dig for
under-earth’s cool
as you clench sand
against the palm of your hand,
again and again,
letting it fall through,
no – watching it escape you.
Even as you press
until fingertips glow white,
with attempts to absorb her
soft, crumbly, light
contents,
the sand stays content
to be her own, and
only grain’s shape remains.
 
The wind blows and
you now belong to
 sand’s blanket.
In fact,
if you stayed
long enough
she’d cover you slowly
sweetly
make you sleepy and
as you rest on her breast,
you’d realize she has only
made you hers.
It never was the other
way around,
was it?
 
 
Amelie Rode is from Tulsa, Oklahoma and recently graduated from Saint Louis University with a B.A. in English and in Women’s and Gender Studies. She loves to travel, hike, camp, and garden. In her free time, you can also find her with her nose in a book or with pen to paper, creating stories and poems. Amelie will be working at the Loretto Academy in El Paso, Texas as a student activities coordinator. She is so excited to spend a year with the rad folks at Loretto Academy and within the Loretto Volunteer Community!