Glimpses from the Road 5

Ocotillo cactus, Joshua Tree National Monument, CA


HIgh desert sunset, near Twenty-nine Palms, CA


Open road, near Petrified Forest National Monument, AZ


Painted Desert, AZ

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Zuni I

tangled the wire: flicker of deadwood
flickered bough: end of the aisle of sand
fallen the stones: nothing beneath this tree
but feathers, trulled cedar, blue stones

your hands in barbed wire
horse knickering upstream
gate rusted into bone, bone into ash, into sage
at the edge of the eye, some dark bird

calling across camp, voice of dying crewel
three notes descend, hummingbird bounces
from bough to seed to syrup: engaged
here, stuck in the ground, a circle of flat rock

nothing but this place to sit, crosslegged, naked
nothing but shadows and echoes in the air above