Arizona Time - poems

Springtime on the Road to Sells

 

Marigolds, globe mallow, shadow

of a hawk, and there goes a runner racing back

in time to before

the border knew what it divided.

History’s in bloom:

                                  one country, two countries, no

country at all, just the land

speaking back to those

who live upon it. And saguaros

aren’t sure what

                              to believe in, earth or

holy orders or the rain. Border guards

on duty, watching for the wind

to make a run for freedom.

A few miles more

to where the journey ends

                                                   at a water tank

and a mockingbird so happy

the sky pours from its throat

as it sings until darkness

and then

                it ascends

to drink from the moon when it’s full.

 

 

 

Octavio

 

He’s a thimbleful of jaguar mixed

with centuries of housecat.

Wears sleep as a disguise

suggesting domesticity, but once the clock

between his eyes ticks daylight

he wants and wants.

Sunlight on the mountain,

 

kibble in his dish, white bread

on the table, he’ll eat

anybody’s breakfast when the window

blinds are raised. Postprandially resting

with finches in focus

 

he adjusts the flow of his spine

and leaps to where their feeder hangs

on the safer side of glass.

Race from wall to wall, complain enough

is not enough by chewing

magazines as though they grew in jungles

and investigate

 

any open drawer or door to where

he’s not allowed. Breakages

are part of his identity, the collateral damage

of being alive. He must

be dreaming when he’s curled into a question

mark of fur, must remember

 

the unrecorded months

before unsheathing his claws to snag

each passing day as though

time were meant to bleed.

 

An Aria for Ghost Towns

 

Clouds of autumn sunshine. A high C

from where a music hall

once stood, a loose gate swings

from a fencepost. What a time it was

when the creek sang softly

and the windows were open all night in the cribs.

No roof on the jailhouse,

                                              no walls at the hotel,

nothing for sale at the general store,

no books in the schoolroom.

Sparrows on the church steps, Turkey Vultures

circling down like angels

come to purify

the men

               coated in the darkness

they brought out from the mine

before going to the evening’s chosen girl.

Deer tracks. A fox on the path. Stars

flowing overhead

and the soprano moon singing

only of the past.

 

 

 

Letting Summer In

 

Dry heat scratching at the door,

summer waking up, the afternoon

going down to peaceful waters far away

and black sunlight

                                  moving around the cul-de-sac

whose only exit leads back to the world

trouble come, trouble go, and discount

at the store one day

a month:

                ten percent off sadness

no questions asked, no regrets, a small chance

of rain ahead

and thunder at the edges of creation.

Inches into dusk, the backyard swing

hooked to the horns

                                        of the moon

with a handful of today

to scatter for the flicker in the morning

and so restore balance,

                                           cancel legislation

that howled when it was signed. After daylight

forgets what it has seen, float into sleep

on the day’s final sigh, cheek to the pillow

ear to the sky.

 

Radiation Dream

 

The sky is floating through a room equipped

with moving parts that glide

without a sound; screens

displaying numbers that relate

to the position a resting body takes while

beams are focused on places

eyes can’t reach. The world outside rolls over

in its sleep

                  until the power brings the sun

to life. An owl passes from the dark

to the bough on which she rests to address

the mysteries, calling for the agents

of destruction to turn to healing

and connect the sleeping

to the waking world.

                                       A hawk’s eye circles

over open space. A diagram appears

on screen. She fixes her attention

on the far below. The ring of parts moves gracefully

around and around. Wings angled,

she comes down from the sun to Earth, electricity

in flight.

              Blue heron, Laughing falcon, melanoma,

alligator, pocket mouse, fruit bat, Harpy eagle,

free-tailed bat, Scott’s oriole, lymphoma, Black-

tailed rattlesnake, jaguar, mountain

lion, and sometimes

                                      it seems that cancers

are the life force in the universe with

the unsuspecting simply

in their way. Lie still,

                                    the moon is on

its circle course. This room is where

a slender thread becomes slow lightning.

 

 

Spiritrunner

 

Another day begins to sag

and suddenly

he’s here, looking both ways on the run and happy

as sunlight soaking into

early summer.

                         The Zuni see him

bringing rain, the Maya knew he gave his brightest

plumage to the quetzal, to Mexico

he brings the good luck America

would deny. His footprints in the dust

lead away from evil.

                                    He’s earthy, sacred,

draws latent thoughts from hiding

and makes them run, run, run

so fast no witches

can keep up. Two twenty-eight in the afternoon,

he’s a backyard spirit

                                       chasing memories away

to make space for living now.

He’s patient, fast,

won’t give up and has a sense of humor to strip

unworthy presidents of

their hubris.

                     Many mornings

he parts the feathers on his back to let

the daylight warm him. On the stony front yard

beside the ocotillo his presence is divine

on humble ground

until he runs

                       where even spirits

have to hunt. And with a good day’s life accomplished

he returns to dream

the feathered dream of those

who are beautiful and yet uninterested

in superficiality. No boasts,

                                                   no falsehoods, nobody

to deceive, just the modest reassurance that come

storms he can outrun them and carry

shreds of lightning

in his beak.