Scenic Drive


The road curls out of a small town
and climbs the rocks
that overlook the churches and
plaza lying fifty years below.
Cactus columns green
into the sky,

fine stones curve
toward volcanic shapes
containing sound that never
shall be heard again.
A few signs remain

that somebody was here
in another life: the ruins
once inhabited, the tank
that held a season’s water,
and beyond them the tailings dam

banked against sunlight.
Lizards have dominion
on the dry slope
where they breathe for the stones

and the drive descends
to join the highway
with two-way traffic
speeding in
one-way time.





Night Ride to the Desert’s Heart


After city’s end
where the last mall shines
like sunset in a box
the nighthawks rise
into the gap
between day and night.
The highway enters darkness,
swallowing all
who drive along it,
pulse and roar
running down to a hum
at dreampace past
the full moon rolling
from between two ridges
and ascending
in time
with a coyote’s
silver call.





Desert Landscape with a Viceroy


The mountain inscribed
on a viceroy’s wings
moves back and forth on a hinge.

The clouds in jojoba leaves
hold back their rain
while smoke trees bloom.

The night inside the trunk
of a saguaro
is cool by day and dark

until it opens as a flower
containing rock and dry
arroyos streaming

down from slopes
when the viceroy buckles
in a springtime wind.





Estes Canyon

​
Losing the trail
is easy with saguaros
in bloom
            and Cactus wrens
calling from creosote
to the chain-fruit cholla
soft to the eye
                    but all thorns.
A mis-step to the wash
and the way ahead
is all stones
              leading to a wall
of solid time
and over each wrong path
a turkey vulture hangs
whose face
               is so well
adjusted to history.