Article Name
Poems from Home
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.
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.
Night Walk
The night path shines
with water flowing down from a source in the dark
all the way to the pond whose surface
is polished by the moon.
So ends
another day. Distant growling
from traffic that can’t sleep
underscores the silence. Mystery’s gate
swings open. It’s only a few dreamsteps
from the trail
leading a lost tribe’s way when
the water ran out. Summer
has run its course and now hovers easy
with the dragonflies by day
and lies back after sunset
while the air-
conditioned city hums.
Somebody has miles to go and promises
to break. And high, too high
for anyone to see
the long migration carries on:
nature never rests. Neither do the planners
for wars
and discontent. And not
the brokers of fear whose television ads are playing
while the nearby desert glows
through its every needle
and it’s one step
by starlight,
one by the grass
underfoot, to follow an unfinished
thought in old shoes
whose greatest wish is to be an owl.
Dawn Coyote
The night’s warm ashes settle
on the driveway. To the east are threadbare clouds
and a breath of light. Outside
the sleepy window lantana bushes lean
across a water bowl. Six o’clock and a pigeon’s wing
brushes the underside
of the falling moon. Six o’clock
and there
stands a coyote, quiet as a wish
and with a nervous step that takes him
to the sidewalk and the circle
in the cul-de-sac, where he stops and
his burnished eyes ask
who stands here
before him. And he turns
back inside his own four-footed mind
to quickstep through
another yard and retrace last night’s
steps to where the mountain lies asleep.
Local Forecast
The forecast is
for moths to pour out of the sky tonight,
for distant storms
to gnash their teeth and run
out of rain before they reach us.
It says
that good and bad luck made a pact
to always act together, and that
fate has a searchlight
to find a way between the stars.
It says the desert will turn
blue when the sun sets
and coyote packs will sing to one
another from one century to the next
across an arroyo
lost in time. There will be
truth and lies that can’t
be told apart in daylight and not
at night when the owl
flies to the other side and won’t reveal
whatever is there. About tomorrow
there is little to say
except that there will be exchange rates
and hummingbirds, wars
and weddings,
ten per cent off groceries
and investments that affect the soul
even as it leaves the body wandering
in pursuit of the lost moon.
Mandelstam in the Desert
An unreliable year – and the centuries
Surround me with fire.
- M.
You may speak freely when the cholla
are not listening.
The wildflower slopes are smiling
and the canyons keep all secrets
to themselves. There is an order here
more ancient than the law:
a brief frost,
winds that tear themselves apart
and bees who find a place to shelter.
Who will betray honey?
Grant admission
to anyone escaping time,
give them a shadow to lie beneath
and make of exile
something grand.
Spare any compassion not needed
for yourself to dispense
among the bobcats,
rattlesnakes and scorpions. When a sting
is one’s own it is beautiful.
A careless word
has space to fly and be forgotten here.
Come,
let us bury the sun in the desert
Boulder at South Mountain
There is a calm inside the boulder fallen
from another age
into this desert moment.
The arroyo
running past the rocks it stands on
speaks always in its sleep
quoting, as only a path still searching for its way
would do, the poet Mandelstam:
I too one day will create
Beauty from cruel weight
as though it knows
what force delivered and set
it down to be a signal to the desert slopes
that they possess
a center and it fills
with warmth each day before
the darkness it is made of
takes back the form at night. Something perhaps
another planet didn’t want, or a new
mountain’s embryo that
never came to term. Yet it floats
on mystery;
a landmark for coyotes
and an itch the Rock wrens come to scratch.
Mathematics could never
have calculated its position.
The stars flow dizzy overhead.
How Night Survives
The blue desert unrolls
beneath a full moon whose light
snags at the tip
of every needle on saguaros leaning
up against the darkness.
The day’s last hummingbird turns into a leaf
that turns into a star that turns
into the all-seeing eye
in the sky: such are miracles
where a bobcat flies
from peak to peak
and coyotes run faster than time can
pursue them, back, back,
back to when God rode on horseback
to claim all the land. But the dry air
fought back and made of thirst
a prayer for the life
even of the scorpion
whose sting points the way for the
spirit to follow.
Spirit Face
The poster stared from every summer
window in business next to business next to
where the trail begins
that leads to the ridgeline holding up
the sky. Out walking, nowhere in particular
to be, just a spirit loosened from
the mind, lost and drawn to desert light,
just the lure of distance
beyond distance and the curiosity late
in life to find what meaning means.
One dizzy step, a rock
to lay her head on,
heat that dreamed its way out through her eyes,
all paths leading to the sun
and the sun takes every offering,
gives nothing back.
Dry July
Today the inside knows what the outside’s like,
cats asleep and windows closed
with nobody walking on the street
and birds in the yard waiting for a shadow
to perch on.
It’s a hundred-
and-Hell degrees this afternoon, the devil’s
breath for a breeze
and climate change denial melts
when the temperature dances
on the asphalt in the road.
The midnight low
is too high for living outdoors. Another
record falls. The homeless camp
was swept away and a public nuisance
turned into a death threat.
A dove
has made a dust bath in a bare patch
on the lawn, a man with no address
lies down with his belongings
at a bus stop where there’s shade.
A lizard on the back wall
flashes his lightning scales as he climbs
a few more degrees
of dry heat
and doesn’t stop until he’s safely reached
the air conditioned sky.
Another Dry Day
The skies of a dry summer
grumble across each afternoon’s light
dropping nothing but scraps
of conversation: Think it’ll rain?
Not likely today.
You can never believe
what the weather report says.
And the mountain
can feel the animals stirring
inside it, preparing to explore the night.
It’s the same for miles around,
thirsty roads and memory
hitching a ride
back to Augusts
that knew how to wait out a storm.
There was a forest
breaking open, lightning at the dinner table,
rain that fell directly
from the sun,
and water disguised
as red earth on the run. Waiting for a cloudburst now
is patient work, long hours at the window
and a few steps outdoors
planning how
to climb into a cloud
and wring it dry.
A Violin Leaves Home: the Night Before
Midnight’s wheeling down
from the clouds. Careless traffic
humming to itself. Stars
tap against the window screen
and the day already forgets itself.
The peaceful part
was when the light relaxed
and lay down on the mountain, finch time,
last flight before it all
goes blue: the streets, the canyons,
the past. Time
in a minor key, a few notes
and on it goes with ticking
in the wood. Such pleasure
is hard earned. Hours of practice
for the perfect seconds
when the bow is drawn in harmony
with darkness. The instrument
is lifetimes old. Listen,
the strings are so happy
they can’t tell a concert hall from
a frontier town café
where a gipsy plays past closing time
convinced that if he plays all night
he could retune the border.
Night’s Blessing
There is a whisper in the air tonight, a secret
from the mountain down
to where its animals go
to be a part of darkness. No walls
for them, no questions asked
when they go where they go and return
night after night while
the houses are asleep. The sky
after midnight sings with a silver tongue.
Another red eye
flies across Heaven. The universe is open
for business. A garden saint
holds out his hand
to bless the mouse who nibbles shadows.
Run, tiny life,
where moonlight cannot reach you,
and fortune will send
old shoes and empty drawers
to nest in.
Ten PM Coyote
It’s Happy hour in Heaven,
last orders up
among the stars, and in between the lamp-posts
throwaways for pickup
stand stacked with bookshelves, broken
chairs and fallen saguaros.
Look out from the front door
along the quiet sidewalks,
listen to the late
roads hum, nobody and nothing
there to move
except
the shadow turning white
as a street-lamp reaches down
and strokes the back of the coyote
just exiting one driveway
and turning quick
as runaway moonlight
through the eye
of nighttime’s needle.
Coyote Moon
It’s time for the newscasters to surrender
and generals in unison
to quote their God: If I find in Sodom fifty
righteous within the city, then I will spare all
the place for their sakes.
Few stars visible.
An air-conditioned hum.
Traffic easy here on Earth
while other worlds in the great nowhere
sparkle in the way
of unkept promises. So bright and yet
so far away.
Today the White crowned sparrows
arrived in the yard where they stay until
spring, the Red-tail in his glory
circled, the desert lay down in the sun
and showed off the birds
whose home is there: Roadrunner, shrike
and quail
while thoughts and prayers
from the last mass shooting
were recycled. The moon’s at half mast
tonight, but bright enough
to see coyotes by as their body language
says Nature
isn’t cruel, it’s practical.
Nightspeak
Leaning back into the stars
and listening to the sky’s yip, yip;
new moon, slow breeze,
an eye
for an eye and no mercy
in the news. Time looks restful
from here, hours afloat
on darkness
with nowhere specific to go,
no mission
to fulfill
beyond following night
down from the mountain
and looking only for whatever
is needed to survive
while word from far away
describes the undescribable
and the animals say
don’t listen, it’s only
radio blood.