a traveling travel writer stops over in Ojai

At the Ojai’s Farmer’s Market today a friend encouraged me to talk to the “poet, travel writer, and embodied writing coach” afrose fatima ahmed. She was sitting at a table in the shade near the center of the little farmer’s market. So I did, and asked her for a poem.

I asked her for a poem on the subject of “lost paradise” and she took it in with seriousness, and a frown, and thought it over for a second or two, and then rapidly typed it out on a little manual typewriter. This is what she wrote. It’s what she calls a “heart-crafted poem.”

lost paradise

how could I have misplaced
somewhere so special to me?

I went searching
for that oasis
in the high desert

for the softness
of the yucca

for the canyons where deer
can dance without fear
of being struck by vehicles

losing holiness
hands heavy   bereft

Yes.