Paintings becoming poems

Paintings In Costa Rica Photographs from the Southwest Creature comforts: the menagerie Chronicles: Poems from Arizona History Road to Ruins, Photos (AZ, CO, & NM) Recent Watercolours Birds around the house West of Remembering:Together on the Road Nora, Ernesto and Miss Petunia Paintings becoming poems From Arizona Poems from Home Animal Dreams

Synesthesia: A Triptych                                      Triptych with Wings

Springtime is the fire that lifts a mountain from the ground.

The earth beneath it flies

in scented trajectories. Yellow birdsong fills

the air, and river waters ring blue against

their aching banks. Saguaro flowers bloom in a major key

while doves address the light with perfumed calls.

Coyotes project bright voices

toward the sky, which is a tremolo waiting

for a theme to begin in the buds

as they open to transform fragrance

into the crackling at the heart

of every flame.

The moth that arrives in a storm

angles its wings for speed. Wide as hands

spread open, it rides

a lightning flash to Earth.

It’s a hiss

wrapped in wind

when it slaps

at a wire screen and rattles

a door in its frame

as a message marked Urgent

from fate.

                It comes unbidden

through forest where darkness

is the guide, and its ink and velvet

markings are

every memory’s first draft.

Only the sky can hear

such cries as the coyotes hold

inside themselves until

the time comes to release them. In the darkening

moment the horizon

lifts a wing against the sun

a canine prayer flies toward the universe

and turns to gold

between the stars.

The hawk whose wings extend forever

shakes a cloud loose

from his primaries as he crosses

land hewn from light

whose gods still reside in canyons

where the cottonwoods

speak of water to the sun,

                                           until

he goes to roost between stars

as the sleeping rains awaken

and rise toward the blossoming moon.

The mystery flower blooms without warning.

It breaks the desert silence

in a key of red major

and when the tip of midnight’s compass needle

points toward infinity

the petals open in the dark

and guide the lost ships in Heaven

to safe harbor.

The vulture who eats history

waits on a snag

for time to pass until

the pickings are rich: a Spanish arquebus,

a miner’s broken lamp, a bedspring

from a brothel once in flower, potshards

and a bottle

                 filled with moonlight

since the whiskey ran dry.