Poems from an Ahwatukee Summer
Ahwatukee Summer
Ahwatukee Summer
. . . as though
a falling raindrop halted in midair
and became a lens through which
familiar surroundings appear in a light
that makes normality transcend itself
and become . . .
the sun wiping the pond clean
these heat alert days with a few
Mallards where shadows float on water
and only a golfswing away
is the mountain that sees everything
from a desert point of view
as it rises with the temperature, and occupies
the zone between earth and sky.
On the hottest day last week
it appeared in the form of an egret
gliding to cool itself, flying
low between the dragonflies
and away across the path that flows
from the desert to the open green
coyotes take to be a second home.
They have drunken the darkness dry
and turn back toward their mountain refuge
with the sun’s taste in their mouths.
It’s lonely by the freeway
entrance with a cardboard sign
asking for relief
from inflation and the heat; it’s difficult
to be human when there is no shade.
Better for the single
roadrunner, who makes a living
down among the weeds
close to Western Star Park.
The rise and fall in interest rates
runs off his back like sunlight.
Traffic, meanwhile, hurries from
the hours to the minutes all
day long while the ridgeline ripples
under passing clouds that break
into a brief and heavy
rain. Shadows push the light aside and
the light pushes back until
the rock slopes have their evening glow
when all the sidewalks turn to steam
and hummingbirds make one
last round for energy
. . . and through the gap between
desert and the urban streets
come the nighthawks dusted
with the mystery of night as they
sweep the air clean
of memories and leave nothing but
the present moment
in their place.
113 Degrees
The heat has folded its wings
and come to rest inside the shadows tangled
in a front yard lantana, holding
to a breath that ends
in orange flower where a few degrees take wing
and hover. It is the hour
sunlight melts
and the truth wears shades
as it passes by the campaign signs
arrayed like a hand of cards
for a game of deception. Last call
before nightfall
for the doves come to peck away late
afternoon, while air conditioned hearts
beat at the pace of Happy hour down
the street at Cactus Jack’s. And the eye
behind the mountain closes.
The moon dissolves
in a glass of darkness.
Bogart
The sky takes off its night mask.
Early walkers open wide their doors
and bring the pavements back to life
step by careful step
with a new day tugging
at its leash. Going all to pieces says
the neighbor lady and Hell
is the end of the street. She’s eighty-six and spent
last night line dancing to forget
the state the country’s in. She woke up
with inflation on her mind and began
worrying where she left off before
sleep about people pouring across
the border. She never looks up
at the mountain with its rippling spine
that was here before this was
a country. She insists that everything
was better before special effects
took over movies, and she smiles a friendly smile
to say and there are so many
shootings now, everyone should have a gun
while she taps her head to indicate the problem’s
only crazy people. And remember
it wasn’t only Bogart: everybody
smoked in movies then.
Street Hawk
The fates left him
a city to live in. Oh, he perches
in the highest tree at sunrise
to survey the wide green fairways and sharpen
his gaze on the whetstone
awakening grass becomes
then fans the primaries with centuries
of open land trailing
from his tail, but the ground beneath him now
has a human face. He’s making a landscape
out of asphalt
and turns the placid sky
into a storm
when his wings are wide and he slices
through an urban flock
with history’s wind
in his bones.
Lost in Ahwatukee
Where the traffic turns off Elliot
into the supermarket forecourt
a woman holds a handwritten appeal
on ragged cardboard
and speaks to the rising temperature
until late afternoon
when she crosses over
the boiling point of patience.
Last night thunder beat
against the dark side of the clouds
while a windstorm plucked a tree
from where the asphalt ends
and left it lying breathless on the ground.
The man who breaks the silence sounds
as though he swallowed lightning
and now he spits it out. He’s ragged
but he’s upright; he’s making
accusations of anyone he sees; he’s
a child of his times and there’s no one
to help, feed, or arrest him
as he moves across the parking lot
just dancing with the light
A woman missing, and the moon
howls. Her life peeled
away from her. A wrong turn. A mountain
trail. While nobody was watching
she flew up and over the ridge
to the city’s dark side. Only the owl
can know where she is, the winged
shadow who spends the night searching
for souls. And it looks
unlikely that she’ll be back for the first
Wednesday of the month to claim
her ten per cent saving at the Safeway store.
New Roof
The roofers down the street this morning
stood boldly in their yellow vests
against the clouds that massed around them
saying Welcome to America
while they played
music out of Mexico
on a small machine that made
the time pass quickly. They worked and
drank water and then drank
some more. They worked so fast
the sun
could not keep pace. They bathed
in heat. They stopped for lunch with the most
romantic strains for flavoring
a sandwich. Rest tasted good. Then
the forecast said to prepare
for dark clouds.
For the washes to run along thunder’s path
and the lightning to stamp their papers.
White-wings
For months the White winged Doves
have gathered in the yard
with morning appetites, afternoon
thirst and a blue ring
around their orange eyes through which
the summer threads its
infinite soul. There is war
east of hope in the world
and rain
wandering lost in the sky. There are
sales at the local stores
and red green red lights
flashing at intersections
between good luck and bad. There’s
a hawk who wakes up early
and patrols the urban streets. There’s
a cloudbank building
with a heavy heart
and doves present
then gone. Away they go
to drought’s end,
drinking moonlight on the wing.
