I
It’s dark inside the walls
containing this arroyo with its broken trees
and brittlebush. Dark as coyote sleep,
dark as javelina
on the run. Grey morning, distant
wren calls, and the trail keeps turning
all the stony way
to disappearance. The moon and wildlife
pass this way at night,
silvering the thorns and turning darkness
inside out. Only someone curious
to know what secrets desert keeps
would come this far
into the mountain’s mind, to step
balance and bend to find a way
to the heart
of creation’s thirsty accident.

II
What the hawk sees from its windy height
is desert wriggling into a rock face.

III
No detours here: straight
through time and shadow
back to when land was useful
only to itself. The rocks still listen
to sunlight as it drips
between the branches when they green
into their season. And the bees
make of their honeycombs a monument
to all that breathes.