Lithic Song
Inside a saguaro skeleton, a loop of blue bells
alive even as they bend, become nest or heart
lying against the patina of breast-
bone. Orange peels littering the arroyos,
poppies imitating the sun with their mouths
wide open. When spring enters the desert
a new tempo opens to skies in bats. Their staccato
flight pattern eats nectar and wing. I count on
this practice like waking. Every winter I am
trees trembling with spring—connection a sway
in light. A brief moment changes the pattern
in the shadows webbed across the dirt.
Catastrophe is other people; how clarity makes
craters of truth from puddles. I’d hide
your shoes if it meant you’d stay
safe. I found impulse moving north
where the sky is a dark room
for photos developing slow, in colors
only tongues spoke. Maybe opal, maybe
pearl. One sound from my window: animal-memory
like palms threading beads, plows
bracing the earth even as wings
fall. I knew a man who could sing better
in his sleep. Once, when he woke
for water, I asked him where he’d gone,
and he said he never could remember. Not
the notes, not the feeling. The breath’s heat
in the brush, a stalking thing. So, this is where
the dream leeches from utterance—wishful
and no longer a hand in vapor. What is left
are small suns where a horse trekked
a broken trail in rain. The clay paths
bled together, shining if you want. A low whistle
remembering the wind
bracing itself against petroglyphs, hands falling
from the skies down canyon walls.
Photo by Bruno Braga on Unsplash