I am clean shaven again although pieces of clear tape still cover these scars, these scars where a child-bride doctor whacked and sliced away layers of face and throat to expel the cancer. I drink black coffee, blink several times—eyes wet and stinging, there’s remnants of last night’s dream crusted on the edges and I’m settling into a place one could call reverie although a better poet would have a better word and now I’m back in Tucson in Autumn trying unsuccessfully to digest the news delivered by phone while driving there’s a melanoma cursing my right upper arm and no matter how much coffee I drink here in this sprawling Starbucks I have another—a third—news of cancer shock to deal with alone in this desert city where I’ve driven a half day across mountains of sand and sagebrush to honor my dead friend Doug and spread his ashes in front of our beloved Zinburger restaurant in the blazingly tormented Arizona heat. Yes, there is a path of joy of awe for our trip through this life---it’s not all sorrow and struggle and cancer, not all St John of the Cross dark nights—the soul knows both fearful medical news and surprising delights---how canyon walls soar, intrigue and uplift, how they gladden the heart, lighten the limbs, bring a dear friend back from the dead somehow in sacred silence, in reverie, for a blessed minute among the saguaros and sand, faces half-hidden among boulders and a sky singing like gold..