In remembrance of a dear friend.​

Arrowheads
-for Bowdie
 
When all we had
were hands and eyes and time--
I remember the curve of your back
as you bent to the ground
searching for them.
I didn’t believe anything
could be found so easily,
until I found one: salmon colored,
pale, imperfect and shiny,
silent as the blackbrush
above an ancient canyon.
 
Some things are revealed
when we least expect them:
the glint of sunlight on an exposed edge
or an orb of darkness nestled in white sand.
Jagged edges leading
to smooth hollows, thousand-foot
cliffs abated abruptly by sand—define us.
We are powerless confronted
by their beauty.
 
I still know nothing about you
except the way you hide your eyes
as though you could keep
the arcane essence of your soul
from spilling.
The bats sense the stain
of desert varnish
seeping through your veins
as well as anyone.
It’s elemental:
we cannot choose
which things we love.


First appeared in THE FOURTH RIVER, Autumn 06.

Winter Rain 

Slate blue light
covers grey
the dim red barn.
Sheaths of gold corn,
frayed white
in dusk, rattle.
This winter rain,
steady on the asphalt,
melts sky to ground
in puddles
where I stand
longing, cheeks
pelted cold.
Rusted withering leaf
clutching still
a naked branch,
twists free.
The empty color of love
drips earthward.


Appeared in THE AVOCET: A JOURNAL OF NATURE POETRY, Spring 07

​

Kit Foxes
-for M. Salamacha
 
Step into the calm
and move through,
each moment enflamed
with passion,
feet bare on the earth
like the paws
of kit foxes
in Art Canyon,
eyes gleaming
from the dark night,
too curious and playful
to run just yet.
Greet each element
with innocence,
stalk whatever fascinates you,
grant every being
a respectful moment,
then retreat again
into the arms
of all that is known.

First published inTHE LYNX, 9/08

Dead Horse Point 

Last night I dreamt
of mountain lions running.
Their steamy breath
trailed me with the scent of survival.
Was it the moon that brought them?
Or the rain?
 
            Alone on the rim
the hooves of phantom horses
strike the slickrock behind me.
There are others on the Kayenta:
the murdered girl,
her body never found;
the hitchhiker,
the boys struck by lightning,
and the suicide,
alone on a cliff
watching the sun set
one last time.
 
            The wind stirs them up.
Their stories hang in the darkness
like ornaments
suspended on boughs of pinyon.
They brush against me in sudden breezes
and I turn, startled.
 
            I can’t pass that cliffrose
near the Mormon tea and Bigelow’s sage
without shivering.
His face appears: eyes closed,
fingertips motionless, body rigid.
The man with the blue face is dying.
He lays there still,
another ghost to haunt the cliffs.
Each night
supine
breath stopped short.
 
Or was it the singing of coyotes?
I crawled from sleep
to the door
and stepped into silver shadows.
Etched in red mud,
cat print.
Behind me,
the muffled breathing
of horses.

First published by WILDERNESS WATCHER, 7/2004, Volume 15