When I turned 50
Jane said, Watch out,
the long slide down
starts now. In my 50s
I let go of a love
that hurt too much,
turned toward peace.
When I reached 60
Jane said, Now
begins the slow
collapse. My 60s 
have been solitude, 
early risings, poetry, 
work, long walks 
and swims. 
Jane says, Soon,
very soon,
you’ll burn out
like a dwarf star 
collapsing
under its own weight.
This comforts me. 
Ten years from now
if we’re both still here
I know 
what her forecast 
will be.

Jackrabbit
zigzags to a manzanita, 
stops with his large ears up,
rises on his backlegs
for a better look,
leads on to where 
I had not meant to go.

Off to the side
on an animal trail that
invents itself 
as it goes along, skirting
foxtails and cholla,
the stiff outstretched
fingers of scrub oak,
a deer moves, 
flank and back legs glimpsed
as I pass a hill-top
tumble of boulders, 
ideal for a cougar den.

At dusk a rainbow
rises from mountains
against dark clouds, disappears,
returns more luminously,
calling rain into the last bit
of last bit of desert sunset.

Jane doesn’t love the ravens
as much as she did once.
Marriage will do that, years
of seeing the beloved
go about his business.
Like most of us 
the black-winged thieves 
are opportunists.
They wait until 
the baby hummingbirds
plump up, nab them 
just before they fledge.
She doesn’t like 
the mourning doves
so much now either, 
having seen them 
peck their babies 
when the little ones 
get underfoot, 
greedy for birdseed.
No one is innocent, 
not even the hummingbirds 
who sometimes pierce 
each other’s chests. 
May Jane never see 
the black-headed grosbeaks,
the white-crowned sparrows 
or the California quail
beat each other up, 
for then who, just who, 
would she have to talk to?