Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico


Most of the sky is ice and the rest
consists of mourning. Gravity on Earth
pulls the soil in the graveyard
deeper into the soil beneath it
where magpie bones are layered
century upon century
until they touch the bones of dinosaurs.

Light is frozen on the mountains
and the day’s final sounds turn to a chill
in a listener’s ear. It is the hour
that all inhabitants in the village share
a single breath and pray
that the straw in the walls of their church
will hold through another night
of troubled dreams. It is dark

with the darkness only animals
can tolerate; they to whom the moon
whispers as it is passed
from one tree to the next
on their branches’ most fragile
and uppermost tips.





180 Degrees


Starting from the low hill
and the ridge that runs before it
the light flows streamward first
to where the current is fast
then edges higher
up the greening slope
that turns to volcanic shadow
in a curve and a thumb
against a sky the colour
of the year’s first heat. Mesquite,
saguaro, gravel and cholla
dip and rise to a thrasher’s
two-note call. The line sweeps
toward another peak, scarred
by erosion, smoothed by wind and water,
and resting on the darkness
of ancient rock and acquifers.
The vegetation thins
on the outcrop whose three
humps are stark,
dry and buckled where the stream
washes beneath them
over stones with old faces
before it disappears
among cottonwoods
while a wide escarpment pushes back
in a stroke of rock
against the universe.





When the Mantis Arrives


The mantis lands on a fingerprint
whose whorls are a map
of the spirit world.

It is never expected
but always welcome
like a tap on the shoulder

from someone long
lost who has waited
for a warm night to return

all alone as a flake
of green light
that weighs less than hope.