Poems Close to 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.

 

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.

 

103.5 FM

 

It’s late enough to hear the moon

humming to itself: a Mexican goodnight, music

in step with the hour from border songs

to a lost accordion. Where does everyone go

in the dark? One deep breath

of desert and a leap

 

to El Norte. There go the melodies,

chasing cars along the Loop road

that are tired now from running, that want

to settle down and rest, want

 

to know where they belong.

They’re out of gas and dream

of floating through the clouds

where clocks have no dominium.

Just when tears come

 

to be expected there’s an outbreak

of Ay,Ay, Ay and romance;

no need to know the language

to ride along, it’s international for memories

in flight. In tonight’s migration

 

half a million birds cross the local sky:

grosbeaks, corridos, warblers

and a polka, too high and dark to see

but even close to sleep the radio

 

is tuned to the stars and broadcasting

melancholy that smiles.

 

Job Done

 

Lightning on the mountain’s shoulder,

doves spilling out

from the clouds. There’s yard work to be done

with a cold edge to

the power saw. The goldfinches

back away when the motor asks where

it should begin. An introspective rain

is falling,

                the bushes need trimming

to make space for springtime to pass through.

The motor coughs itself alive

and gives orders for the blade to work

in a language half machinery and

half from Sinaloa. It’s chilly for March, a long

way from home, and questions

continue:

                  Cut here? Leave this? Is there desert

where you come from? And everything is neater

than it was. The sky is dark when

it asks why Americans want to close

the border to those who come

to do,

          on a rainswept afternoon, the jobs hung out

to dry. And away goes the truck, with sunset

in the taillights, as mockingbirds

sing the last daylight to sleep.

 

 

Jackrabbit

 

                From fifty thousand years ago.

                A canyon wren calling.

                                Drum Hadley

 

There’s no end to a walk with no end

in sight, just the wandering stones

beneath each step

and the mesh of thorns and shadows

where an arroyo shifts direction while it holds

to its enquiring path

that wants to know the wheres and whys

of its narrow place in the world.

                                                               To whom

can a saguaro pray for rain? Who answers

when an owl at midnight

goes where tiny

rodents go? Is anyone listening

to the starlight when it howls and yips and

licks the blood from a fresh kill

with its silver tongue?

                                          It’s morning.

It’s the slow breath of walking.

There isn’t a straight line in sight, only

a jackrabbit chasing sunlight

in the Earth’s desert dream

of time growing tired.

 

The Carp

 

There lies a carp decaying

on grass beside the pond with eighteen inches

of its spine stripped bare

and the skin on what body remains

blackened in plain view.

                                             The water can’t remember

what pulled it from the bank;

it simply performs

its liquid duty of reflecting sky. The Buffleheads

don’t know and the Black phoebe

never saw

                   the dark maneuver

by which three shining feet of silver

was dragged into the sunlight

that keeps on nibbling

where wildlife found the taste too bitter

to continue

                      and finally reveals

creation’s bone.

 

In the Beginning

 

                I want to reconsecrate things as much

                as possible, I want to remythicise them.

                                Pier Paolo Pasolini

 

Before there was a wingbeat

to set the shiver free

that turned into the moon, before a mountain fell

from the unmapped sky,

before quail and mockingbirds and orioles

who trailed fire when they flew

came thunder loud enough

to touch.

                So did the moment pass in which

all beginnings began. No advance notice.

No cooling winds. A patch

of winged sunlight descending

to the ridgeline beneath

which spiny lizards first opened their eyes to see

themselves glow, becoming myth

in tiny dragon scales.

 

Birdcast

 

Two million birds crossed the county last night

moving to where starlight

lands. It’s springtime in the sky, two thousand

four hundred feet at midnight high,

feather bright and quiet

along the true path north. It’s dark enough

 

up there to feel

the pull of a remembered place

while down here the sleeping mountains roll

to one side or the other, and the creeks

keep flowing on the way

to being rivers. Forests sparkle

with the sounds of insects,

the desert exhales, radios are tuned

 

to the secrets only darkness knows

and they play softly while

the count begins. Orioles, flycatchers

and chats; there they go, a million, a thousand,

a hundred and the one

grosbeak who already knows

the tree she will nest in.