Dante’s View
We both saw the desert, and
in looking, saw the future
lying there before us,
mountains become pebbles,
become grit and even smaller,
washed and crushed and moving,
always losing ground and yet
we know them by their names,
as I am known to you,
as you are known to me.
Torrents can submerge us,
lift us and then crush us,
yet we get our feet beneath us.
We are clean, but we are lost;
we are found, but then we’re gone.
Come let’s walk up in the mountains,
our hearts louder than our thoughts,
striding longer than our legs,
let’s get as close to prayer as sunlight.
The sands are always waiting.
Rock House (The Fire This Time)
Up from friendly fire
rise an exuberant few,
just giddy sparks of heat
in bits of orange and light,
thoughtless wanderers on the April wind,
carried north and sparkling bright,
frightening in their heedless flight.
At touchdown comes a swift surprise
that grows from squirming lines
to awful wall
of blistering flame,
a roiling storm
completely deaf to all who pray
for time to run, for open gates,
for a sudden turn
back over ground already burned.
But fire is a mindless thing,
goes where it must, and shows itself
with smoking sky and ashen dust.
Starved, it falls to a plasma glow
through waves of heat,
hissing threat in a dying breeze.
Then back they come,
on two feet and four,
bereft neighbors,
to claim what remains
between fencelines and mountains
and cottonwood trees.
Dust Devil*
For moments it is visible,
a twisted, tenuous thread
frayed at both ends.
How it writhes
like an angry bright vein,
pulses and bends,
touches down and snaps back
in an instant,
while we whirl away free,
yet engulfed in an ocean
of currents and heat,
breathing tides we can’t see.
*after a photograph by James Evans, 2007
Hummingbirds at the Feeder
Tiny airborne Errol Flynns,
sabers drawn, come winging in.
Jealous guardians? Ardent lovers?
Frantic warriors
feint and hover,
mad, possessive battle joined
lest territory be purloined,
hold airspace and a privileged perch
inviolate as if a church
guarded from the infidel,
red sugar-water in the well.
What energy each wee bird burns
because he will not just take turns!
– by Lauren Martini
