Sandra Dorr
has encouraged and
inspired writers for
25 years. She worked
as an editor and
writer in New York for
seven years before
moving to Colorado.

Email Sandra

Sandra Dorr
2529 Grand Overlook Drive
Grand Junction, CO 81507
(970) 257-1498

Western Colorado Writers Workshop (April 2010)

Scenes from a Writing Weekend (This Lively Earth)

Read about retreats on Sandy's new blog

• Wild Mustard
  
  Abandoning the paper on the driveway,
  I walk out into the stillness of the desert
  tingling from the night's rain, sage and juniper
  pale silver in the dazzle of light tilting the buttes,
  the cloud of blue mesa lying on the horizon
  when an unmistakeable lime scent pours off the wind
  from the first tips of green standing in water,
  a speck of purple blossom I scoop up on my finger
  to smell its scraggy moist leaf, its perfect four-petalled cross
  sprung up through the hard brown clay of winter:
  wild mustard, the desert's first flower.
  How can something so small awaken this land,
  this lingering bittersweet greenness
  that makes my body tremble for more of its fragrance
  as it drifts through this bright air, announces its presence
  to the horses standing in shimmered grasses,
  the flying bellies of geese
  the child tying a string on her bike,
  and I who stand dumbstruck on a walk
  through a field of wild sweet mustard.
  
  What is it in this life I cannot find?
  What god is it I am looking for?