A solitary hawk beneath
a sky of lavender and gold,
assumed the vantage of a tree
and there reconnaissanced the cold.
Once-melting drifts of speckled snow
grew stiff against the freezing ground.
The humid gusts abandoned hope
and left the air without a sound.
What once was flowing now was tamed;
the rivulets, muddy and curled
lost strength and stream, as puddles became
glass windows to [...]
I
The Rancher Speaks
I was in the sheep business for years.
Sold off my sheep and got into the cattle business and now I have friends.
The cattle men talk to me.
I suppose what finally drove me out was the predators.
The eagles swooping down and taking newborn lambs
and there was nothing we could do about it.
We tried noisemakers [...]
Today the secret names of everything
come back, the ancient names.
Tribe-of-the-morning names
call to me from the wind, which I know
as shut-your-eyes-breath,
hands-over-your-ears, gone-with-the-ice-song,
hymn-rising-out-of-cottonwood-sap.
Smell-of-dogwood; it is called,
smell-of-willow.
Daffodil has become again
small-pusher-of-earth-and-snow,
light-out-of-stone,
seawater-turned-sunshine.
This morning has its own name,
separate from all other mornings,
fire-in-the-clouds
waking-in-the-folds-of-mountain,
joy-of-long-shadows.
And now spring has brought
mist-in-my-breath,
shining-on-the-rocks,
quick-and-noisy-in-the-canyon,
to make soft soil in the garden
where I kneel for the first time
on the almost-warm-gift-to-growing
and work [...]
At five in the morn I gaze upon the Earth
Holding my little one so innocent and mild.
Hoping that I might have a chance
To feel her trails of glory
The midnight rain ended soon,
Leaving clean the outside world
I glanced through a crack to catch a glimpse
Of Nature’s hallowed view.
Crisp, Clean, Calm the scene lay before my eyes.
Each [...]
October, what will you bestow? You’ve left
the tulips and long daffodils unborn,
and spreading ferns aloof in darkest glens;
your brown leaves have revealed a scarlet thorn
to snag the frosty mornings. Mallards will
not light upon the weir, and open skies
remove their lightest blue. The fallow rose
is waiting for the spring–and like my eyes,
discolored branches search for green. [...]
Dusted red stone
wrapped in gray deluge
yields greened cliffs shimmering
like an unearthly vision
in sunshine’s morning haze.
Silver gray brush bears yellow blossom cascades.
Stands of ocotillo—no longer barren,
barricaded with thorns—
blush tiny green leaves until
burnt orange petals burst from their fingertips.
Drying mesquite scents air
alive with the rush of rabbits, cooing doves,
the hawk’s hunting cry, coyotes’ eerie babble,
silent lizards thawing [...]
Driving to the top
of Little Pine Creek Canyon,
I see how the reservoir fares,
how deeply it curves
against hand-mortared stone.
Home for spring break,
I’d overheard
that it’s filling up good this year.
(Was it at Terry’s Merc?
Or at the Relief Society Birthday Ball
where I watched a former cheerleader
dance in maternity clothes?)
No matter.
It’s enough to watch
water swell like metaphor
while I remember
that [...]
you rustle me as long grass,
stirring and scattering
me to grow
in places where I otherwise
would not.
I want to grow a garden for you,
to teach you the beauty of your
nurturing,
to put in colors and leaves and
petals and
fibers
the sunlight-directedness that from
you I have learned,
that perhaps,
when your roots are plucked
and your flowering withered,
you may look to me,
remember the springtime,
and [...]
I was getting cold feeling bored going down the road again
This was yesterday
But I like to use the past simple tense so it looks even further away
So I told my girlfriend
I think I’m going through a brand new crisis
What crisis?
She sat up and smiled as wide as she could
That kind of crisis, you know
That kind [...]
Under these clouds the earth
Has raised a monument
To herself, tier by tier, a replica
Of the stone beneath my feet.
I am stone, too–stone
And one hot wick of life
Fusing me to the first generation,
Flaring forward from me to the last.
Stone, thread, and rain
One March, Grandfather held
A forked stick by the prongs
And walked slowly back and forth
Across the [...]