Roadrunner Meditations

Saturday; the no-news channel morning show

has animals in far away locations. The world is still

the world there.

                         And outside in the back yard

are quail who like to roll in the dust

where grass used to be. There is bad news

somewhere, but the white scent

of jasmine drifts across the front door

and declares a few square feet of peace.

There’s no way back

                                  into the dream that ended

with a dog’s bark at daybreak. Some

dark wisdom disappeared. The minutes slow dance

from six to eight to ten. A cheetah

watches for prey between the trees. A sloth

hangs upside down from a bough.

Suddenly a streak

                             of patchy sunlight runs

across the lawn at the speed of an idea escaping.

There’s a mean streak to his elegance.

Did the dream hold any answers

to the questions of the day?

                                           It flicked its tail and ran.

Don’t ask where to. Never question

sunlight when it flies.

 

*

Wind and nighthawks beneath the stars

and it’s quiet as worry in the kitchen, quiet as darkness

passing through the yard. The window worries

that its frame won’t hold, the back door

worries that its hinges

will come loose to fly off down

the wash, and the left shoe

worries that the right one will walk away on its own.

Come dawn,

                    time for starting over,

and each time the Roadrunner appears

he’s a surprise, he’s

                                a lost thought trying

to find the question

it’s an answer to.

 

*

 

In the ditch back

of the drug store, lizards like

the grasses dry and weeds

that don’t take long to disappear. Here are waste paper,

plastic cups, boxes

filled with nothing but the wind and whatever’s left

of newsprint blankets: someone’s

overnight address.

                              It’s a good place

for passing through, damn

the lack of scenic in the scenery, this

is where survival’s crest

stands proudly between the forehead and the sky.

This place without ambition,

where heat pools on the ground and shadows

run for their lives

                            is the promised land for him,

a dusty world that no one

else will claim.

 

*

 

There’s a fine trail to take

for walking with only

the ground underfoot for company. Nobody here

talks about the soul,

                               gives instructions

on how to be alone, or to look inward.

Clear sky, blue

all the way to eternity. Stop,

and the view of distant mountains says this world

never ends.

                   The mind can fly

from here, the body has to walk. And unexpectedly

breaking through

the desert’s revery with a yip and a coo

comes the Roadrunner’s call

                                               in the key of mindfulness.

He’s concentration running

and it matters not at all

that the rocks around him

have become

                    meditations turned to stone.

 

*

Straight ahead between two moods

a desert path lifts one step

into light and

one back into darkness. Philosophy’s been here,

so has faith,

                  but both got lost

on the way down

into the arroyo. Shady now, and on the rocks

balanced above walls dissolving,

                                                    making space

for new ones as the earth pushes hard

from beneath

is the sudden insight

                                 into who and why

and where it all became this here and now.

Hurrying behind a dry mesquite as though

time itself were chasing him

he disappears.

                       The light opens for him

to pass and closes behind him when he’s gone

to where he’s looking back

at what the world would be

without him.

 

*

 

He was here, that much

is certain but where he’s gone nobody

will say. He’s good at making mystery

of a sudden appearance on the back wall and then

turning fact to fiction

                                  with a flick

of his tail and an updraft of light

that lifts him to the roof. He might return

tomorrow or

                    not for several months; he’s no

messiah, neither does he stop

to be admired. Religions don’t explain

where he comes from, where

he goes and whether that is food

                                                     or indecision

in his beak. It’s a lifetime’s work

to wait for the improbable

when his return could never be

as beautiful as dreaming it.