The Edge of the Continent: The Desert

By Jacqueline Suskin

This book is about California. Specifically, this third volume is about Joshua Tree—the dry, sparsely populated landscape known for its strange topography and spiritual pull. Jacqueline Suskin spent winters on a ranch at the far edge of the desert for many years, caring for mustangs and goats, walking the long sand roads in solitude. This book explores the richness of her experience in a place many view as barren, exposing its unique offerings through personal narrative. In this collection, Suskin invites readers into the often unseen magic of the desert, a place where silence and open space bring gifts of potent healing and ancient insight to those who are willing to sit still and listen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rare Bird Books
• Release date: Sep 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781644281765

Jacqueline Suskin

Jacqueline Suskin has composed over forty thousand poems with her ongoing improvisational writing project, Poem Store. She is the author of six books, including Help in the Dark Season. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Atlantic, and Yes! magazine. She lives in Northern California. For more, see jacquelinesuskin.com.

Book preview

Joshua Tree

When fools forget the bounty

of the desert and call it dead,

your body reminds them

of dogged life. Your shaggy limbs

reach in every direction as you spread

your family throughout the valley.

Against the wind you shudder and bend.

You have an uncanny ability

to cradle the moon. Your white

flowers are cups of air, bells

holding thousands of the blackest

pupils, seeds that have seen

time shift like an ocean.

I kneel close and kiss the one

white spot on your gnarled trunk.

Grandmother, with your sturdy hide,

your lineage exalts the endless sky.

Desert Bear

I know how to heal myself.

In solitude, my routine

of waking up with the sun,

writing, and singing.

To memorize the names of plants.

To walk a familiar gate, softly

as not to disturb the delicate

growth that somehow withstands

wind and heat, day on end.

No one can see me.

I take many deep breaths and never hurry.

I sleep when I feel like sleeping.

What comes out of me in this buoyed state

is the voice of the sacred cosmos.

I hear it start to build

after three days in the desert.

Deep warm sand and cool stone.

They say there is an extensive aquifer

below this landscape, wetness

in the dark. There is a bear who lives

in the boulders. She is me.

Here, she is in her finest season.

Alone Together

The first year I came to the ranch

a few days after Bryan died. I drove

right by the place on I-5 where we lost him.

It could have been any of us.

In a new way, everything felt like chance.

I picked up Kyle at the Ontario airport

and we were in love for a week

before we started tearing each other apart.

He’d just gone through a divorce

and in our bereavement we decided

to split each other open. It was silent

at first and then I threw my camera at him.

We learned to write our books

on opposite sides of the house

and only get together for meals.

After all that time with wind and sand,

when we finally parted ways

we were grateful to understand

the weight of grief. The way it works itself

like a broken rib loose in a soft-sided animal,

ready to settle back in or be ripped out.

Better without too much touch.

Watermelon and Oranges

In the morning I eat

watermelon and oranges.

I’m barefoot but wearing

a thick wool coat. I forget

what day it is, what season,

what chores call me out into the yard.

I give rinds to the chickens,

drop seeds for the