And So, The Desert

"...friends hug your suburbs
farmlands are given a nod
but I know the path
to your wilderness."  – Snyder, from "The Earth's Wild Places"











I saw the pool on my own
out at the end of all the haciendas

sat out on the last chair pointing
at the foothills of Santa Catalinas
like a compass    was no barrier between
us

just a glass fence and then the suburban
cacti the rough old horse paths
littered by blown water bottles other trash
golf course rising up
like a string of green lush islands linked
and made it all seem alright

other eyes looking down on us
from Mt. Kimball out on the horizon
up along the Finger Rock Trail
were my own eyes from a day ago

I wolf that I had never seen
I mountain goat bobcat ochotillo rising
up by its thick living room stalks
where I was in love by the saguaro green

one had fallen only one
and lay flat along the trail
just the ribs of it brown and dessicated
the clear outline of what was before
sleeping now