by Diego Medina

mile marker 9

(you see, my love, we met in a sacred way—
some way of perfect alignment. how we got here
is a story that this holy land shares with us.
our migrations were determined long ago,
when the earth was in prayer,
when the mountains and valleys
made their pacts, and the rivers
sung themselves into being, carving through the land.
these landscapes we see are ancestors, my love,
they knew we were coming, intended us,
and they shaped themselves
so as to require our course.
our migration patterns were stories
that the rivers and mountain ranges
told to each other, and these formations shaped
connections, they spoke every love story,
and our unfolding futures are in credit to
the form of the land. she determined our movements
and settlements, our dances, our languages, our first kisses.
she would shape us, and in return
ask that we shape with our hands
that which God has asked of our imagining spirit
to bring upon the earth in a prayerful way.
she would ask that we hold our lovers tight
and kiss them goodnight. she would ask that we press ourselves
upon her with only loving intent. we must live as a dream
of our Holy Land’s beauty. that is it.
and darling, though my hands are worn,
when I run my fingers
along your body, the land moves with you,
and in these moments of prayer
landscapes become.)
baby, this isn’t the oldest story of our love
but that doesn’t matter. A sharp blade
will still cut, even after it’s maker is gone

mile marker 191

we bought your used hyundai
santa fe in the bethlehem of new mexico, belen
and baby, all you wanted was an el camino.
a long way from galilee, from the stone in your belly,
from the buffalo hides we traded our salt for,
2000 cash for a santa fe you never wanted,
it didn’t make it past
truth or consequences, before breaking down
and we stayed the night there,
where they built the dam, 1911,
and destroyed a river older
than our concept of time.

mile marker 79

there was an el camino for 10 grand,
real nice
up near alcalde

and you were afraid to stall out,
like all left feet in alcalde fear.

i saw you plead with the santa fe in t or c, mad
and entreating desperately its never-coming sentience.
the transmission was done,

dead there on el camino real,
and what was it about this highway that people
believed in. the real road is underneath the tar

where countless love stories are enslaved
to mythological bitumen.
before they called it el camino

she was real. there were lovers here,
loving though shackled,
and some were separated in 1680
crying across the halves of the state
and sending each other rain.

truth or consequences;
where the seen isn’t, the unseen is.

before t or c we were in hot water,
and now there is no water in the Holy Land,

its all waiting behind the big dam.

creation leaves no mere coincidences,
only seeds of meaning for fertile minds to sprout.

today there is no water in the Holy Land
there are no turtles in Turtle River,

and the bends in the river
where fertility gushed,
where minerals made their beds for millions of years
are all gone and straightened
leaving only the plants with the deepest roots to survive.

this is where your santa fe will be forgotten,
and your tongue will be too dry to call it by its original name.

it will beg for water, but only say juarez,
none until you get to
The last place to get baptized
on this side of the border.

mile marker 0, wet and wild waterworld

pilgims come a long way, sniffing
for wet on the wind,

to find an oasis in the desert,
a heaven in the Holy Land,

and they churn their stomachs sick
when they get there,

going through the vortex
and chugging.

this is our last stop
before lupe de los mansos.

our mission, nuestra senora,
passed the old clay spot, now

the texas transportation stockyard,
to our rock in juarez

on the same line of latitude
as jeruslaem, and with the same storyline.

the mission figs will bless our bellies,
and we too will bloom from within.

that is what the mission always failed to know,
what the figs already do:

the only way to know God
is within.

my love, there’s holy string
between us too. there are fig

seeds i left in your body.
they will grow poems in your heart.

nothing sacred can be separated by a history,
even one dark enough

to see the same stars
from different missions.
when we are brought to this earth
we are given a mission,
we are called by creation to offer up our
love to the holy fire,
to feed the eternal flame
with our passion and breath.

mile marker 147

we are given a verse
borrowed from God
to return back to God
in another’s heart

when we were brought to the missions
we were taken from our earth,
but we kept our verse;
we kept enough words
of our language to pray.

never call this language extinct,
for even in our exodus to the south
the first word of this language spoken upon this land
will forever remain.

in the prayers, in the music the pueblo never ends.
in the footsteps and induction fields the pueblo never ends.
we are still there if we are still here,
even after the centuries

there are still dances in Salinas,
where we were brought to this earth.

there is still salt in our blood,
so that we may sweat.
we had a war for salt in this holy land
as i prayed for your sweat once more.

mile marker 165

there’s no water in the holy land
but there’s salt,

the crystal memory of water,
the prayer behind the words.

we made our offerings to
the Holy Beings

when we arrived
and to our families left behind.

from one salty area to another
but a timeline warped and off-course.

somewhere a girl longed
to grab her beloved’s hand,

somewhere salt woman
longed for my kiss again.

love has enslaved something in you
and like the ocean, love knows not it’s own vastness

until it’s dried up
and only the sacred salt remains.

this is how i will remember our love,
how i have to.

that big ocean
now a desert

this holy road
now a highway

this mission
now our home.

i keep my heart open
to the thought of you appearing before me

i keep up this virtual pilgrimage to
something more than half-real.

our ancestral highway is a holy one
and it was mapped by the stars.

we’ve used it for thousands of years before this,
and there are more to that story than this one.

the way they use it now is wrong.
wrong for our hands

to be torn apart on
el camino real
and that’s all you wanted
at age 25.

mile marker 282

all you wanted was something
to cruise slow in

and show me the desires
the sun never gets to see

slow enough, you and me,
to feel everything,

letting shadows fall soft
across the desert

briefly disappearing
a small sherd of history;

the steam leaving
clay and straw bricks drying in the sun.

drive it down to the border then, little girl
where the world ends,

take your el camino
and fly!

they don’t make them anymore
just a thing left

a small sherd
of history, there

like what the jirds did to bless
the flower children at shanidar

who could only dream
of jericho.

no AC but its worth
the vision you seek.

the false water on the highway,
the shadow of a saltbush swallowing.

there are no better shadows than shadows
in the desert.

only true pleasure
can be felt in the dark.

fear not, my
angel

i will love you in a million more
timelines than this.

This one is your
el camino.
even if just your tongue and mine
we’ll hold every word

mile marker 169, or thereabouts

and what’s next for our love?

will we love beyond the horizon of time,
where we know the sun by the silhouette first?
will we love in bodies like these

or bodies like the riverbed,
or the bed of an el camino?

my sun has danced across your sky
leaving your horizons glowing pink and flowering
every morning and every night

and now on this day of parting

we are designated a candle to light
for the memory of it all, our monsoon
season of pleasure,
to keep a record of God’s knowing,
so that it may be called upon in a future time.

and in that way
in the beating heart of creation
the love never goes.
hundreds of miles, and yet
we’ve loved for longer.

through all of the geological strata,
and yet we still take this salt.

i loved you, kissed you at the acomilla rest stop,
looking out over the rio salado,

and that was the last time for this life.
an historical marker on the el camino real,

and you’ll go that way,
and, little one, i’ll go this way.
your body will always belong to my eternal love, baby.

mile marker 6, WSMR 20,000BC

the eagle above, golden,
circling, cleansing,

i knew you were with me,
the mammoth, camelop, the dire wolf,

i knew you were with me.
even after these months,

after thousands of years in the lifetime of a pilgrim,
there are further aparts we could be.

every migration that has been made
to reach salvation

to reach the proverbial salt,
is recorded in the heart.

The lives we live are portals to the memory of God
and we must always think bigger than us.

We were pulled from a place centuries ago
but we will always return home to each other’s hearts somehow.

The eagle brings every dimension forward,
spins a triskele with it’s fractal feathers

and opens up the window to every timeline,
like a vision of spinning constellations

speaking, with light alone,
in tongues.

constellations are sacred sites,
made from an allegiance long ago

and you and i always return to these sacred sites together.
we were made there together, and shall be there forevermore.

stepping through the same white sands
as the Holy Ones

we become landscapes.
the white sand

this beautiful body,
i’m here to give my gift of love.

relinquish the past,
set it free from your grip and let it run.

that which you truly love
will return again in time.

we left our footprints
but we took out shadows.

our footprints know what it means
to never leave home, but only

shadows know what it means
to be inside

another’s heart.