EYES
May Divinity
Outside the window
distended Magnolia buds
huddle like mothers-with-child,
waiting for the wonderment,
and petaled wombs open
to exhale a divinity as heady
as unspoken words left on
the morning pillow
and resurrected now
in phrases dulled before
a perfume almost as enticing.
ROAD TO NIGHTFALL
An elf owl,
small as a sparrow,
claims a high branch
of the white thorn acacia. It waits there
for the deeper darkness of dusk
and the long, low creatures that come out
to chorus the Pecos plains.
Toward Marathon, windmills mark the miles,
crow families as still as the windmills’ blades
watch from the weatheredframework.
Shadows approach like slow, soft rain
as earth layers its rock skyward
shoulder to shoulder to dwindle the valley
and hide the sun, leaving behind
the soft call of the tanager
and lit spines of the solemn cholla.
Dusk clashes with night. An electric storm
unveils the acacia and the elf owl, diving.
Its eyes, like fallen stars, have chosen
a desert lizard smaller than itself,
leaving across the night
an age-old story.
2007 PUBLISHED PST
small as a sparrow,
claims a high branch
of the white thorn acacia. It waits there
for the deeper darkness of dusk
and the long, low creatures that come out
to chorus the Pecos plains.
Toward Marathon, windmills mark the miles,
crow families as still as the windmills’ blades
watch from the weatheredframework.
Shadows approach like slow, soft rain
as earth layers its rock skyward
shoulder to shoulder to dwindle the valley
and hide the sun, leaving behind
the soft call of the tanager
and lit spines of the solemn cholla.
Dusk clashes with night. An electric storm
unveils the acacia and the elf owl, diving.
Its eyes, like fallen stars, have chosen
a desert lizard smaller than itself,
leaving across the night
an age-old story.
2007 PUBLISHED PST