Trailthoughts

I

Gravel singing underneath

each step, the foothills move aside

to let the mountain through.

Javelina left their tracks

as punctuation in the story

darkness told. No left wing

                                                  right wing

leanings here, no arguments about

whose rain it was

that fell for hours just yesterday

and soaked, root-happy, down, down

into the thirsty underworld

while rocks

                     from ground up to

the morning sky

hold their positions through whatever

comes. The desert passed a motion

to ordain all randomly

assembled forms

                               that they

become spirits to endure all weather.

II

Two ravens over desert

call truth in a single syllable

while language that grows on the ground

is busy selling fear and weight loss,

                                             disguising fraud

as promises. One is the shadow

of the other, echo

of the caw

that clouds hear, no questions asked

of the universe they’re in

or why they were chosen

to fly

        where lies cannot reach.

 

III

Sky rotating, gullies still, cloud east,

cloud west, and questions

chasing quail

                          too quick to answer them.

Two storms for the price of one

back in the supermarket world,

the one that knows our names. Another few steps

between thorns and the twisted

                                             left-behind

trees in the arroyo. A tight space.

No reason to be here. And none

to turn back. The moment

in a dream that won’t explain itself. Desert’s

broken parts.

                          Time to turn pockets out,

count peace and small change while the sun shines.

 

IV

The high ground doesn’t lend

and the low ground doesn’t borrow.

The mountain once

was married

                       to the moon, harbored nightly

mysteries until

the hour of sunlight for the taking

in a debt-free sky.

 

V

Seen from where the trail begins

losing its grip on the earth

the distant four peaks whiten

in a borrowed frost from winter. A chill

from the sun         

                       touches down between the mesquite

chosen for a nest

and a saguaro hollowed to

its determined stand against drought.

A gentle rise in elevation,

                                              foothold

on the smooth stones, a scramble

up the slope and then

body changes places with the soul, or so

the romantics would have it,

but here

               is where coyotes turn

their daytime dreams to water

and run

              faster than the latest legislation

can ever escape good judgment.

 

VI

The ridgeline wanders off into another day.

Loses hold on what has gone before.

Tethered to darkness

it  listens

              for the owl calling

to soften the severity

of laws

            and to summon

some compassion from arroyos.