Northern Nevada, windswept sage scent after the rain, dust storms and strip malls and neon light temple idoltry and progress sweeping forlorn across the burnt burgandy horizon. Northern Nevada, tumbling blue sapphire desert river…salvation for the lonesome seed lying dormant, hidden beneath the parched ocre soil. The patient earth listens to the rumble of semis along the Interstate 80, listens to tractors hum, slowly pulling the sand into squares of farmland patchwork and suburban track housing sprawl. Days of winter chill in the biggest little city in the world, in a bar, by the train tracks in downtown Reno, a rock-a-billy band called the “Trainwrecks” play twangy, tattooed, lovesick country ballads to a cloudy room of twenty something 9 to 5ers desert suburb born, bred and never fled refugees… Oh fateful night, night of nervous words familiar, drunken spark and tremors…Oh, glorious night, night of black and red, night of recognition, night of thaw, the night I was to fall in love. Northern Nevada, mad, desperate longing, sinking ship, nervous first kiss on that desert river, trembling lips, frozen fingertips search loose material for warmth, draw the warmth near chilly in April the snow still melting away into early spring soil. Days evolve to dry summer Summer heat your broke down van, small boxey bedroom, art gallery, tapestries, stained glass, stone eye green leaf synthesis. Northern Nevada, we wound up and down bumpy dirt roads on the way to your secret desert lakes with Zeny, your tall lanky Russian space cadet friend with no job or money, drink beer in the sand, catch frogs, stare off into space for hours to forget about strip malls and shaky family relations, SUVs, currupt government and the huge never ending complex world. We curl up at night in the back of your van with bones and feathers on the dashboard, little pieces of hope that make you feel connected to the increasingly urbanized earth. We hold on to each other neath bits of broken sky, the stars – a ladder, our love – a temple. We make offerings of song and laughter and tears, we offer up to the Gods you spent your childhood fearing… Northern Nevada and a campfire and a trail of smoke and words – we play with fire…all these colored words are for you, every song - at the end of the day - I long only to meet your darkened eyes and to lay in comfort and warmth. With the lake lapping over the shore and the owls hooting from the branches of your secret willow forest – I found the meaning of your love. In the eternal flashing of a neon sign, in decadence and loss of innocence, I found love. In 10 months in Northern Nevada, Sunday morning orgasms, dew on the moon, desert hot springs a river of sunken jewels and scaley beasts…I found your love.