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                                                 Equinox

Novena                                    …the future has already passed,

many times, and

                                                around lie the ruins of old futures

On Mexican Time                                           --Tony Cohan,

At the stone cuesta’s
bent knees
a boulder graveyard

*

This rock chocked slot

carved

by an ancient river

            *

Dried streambed cottonwoods

shiver, their minds

focusing color explosions

            *

Afternoon mirage

bends a canoncito upward,

hanging in air

            *

Rabbit brush waft

gold

as a cloistered god’s ransom

            *

A cold blue glow

cools dusk shadows

wandering the arryoyos

            *

Nightwind’s shush

fills the space

between twilight and moonrise

            *

A bloated third quarter moon

purls

into eastern shallows

            *

Mars like an orphan coal

above the Fisher Towers

 

Duende

 A river’s secret twin, a ghost of air

            -True History of the Kelly Gang

                                                Peter Carey

A washing shadow rides night currents

above the breathing river.

 

Great cottonwoods line the banks

motionless as stalks

of summer’s dried cheatgrass.

 

A waterfall of moonlight crashing

and crashing, yellow moths and fireflys

swim the pale spectre,

 

nighthawks bullroar the mirage

like death angels bearing messages

of futility and deception.

 

The living water cuts the hills

toward western forests through wild nights

and canyons filled with huge stones,

then drowns in shimmering miles of sea

 

and the wind peels away

the ghost of river

with its gnarled fingers

 

and the moon pulls its long roots back

through the hardscrabble crust of cloud

into clear sky, the sweet scent

of smouldering starlight, a threshold

to harmony. A kind of rapture.

 

  Remnant

being the remainder of a carved down pretentious sonnet on the

Michaelangelo effect of wind, including a joyous horse and a

gorgeous arch, both unanticipated before being stumbled upon

while wandering

 

A wind gust

                        wallows,

in an arroyo,

                        rolls,

then rises and shakes its mane,

leaps

            to trample a rabbit brush

huddling on the lip.

 

Suddenly

this crimson framing arch,

wind’s triumphant joy,

the majesty of sandstone

frozen momentarily,

a grand pas de deux,

in its slow sojourn

back to bright dust.

 

 

Wind Psalm

 

Sand wisps

thin and pale

as a ghost’s shadow

 

under a frightened protestant sky

heavy with the faith of wind,

laden with the guiltweight of dust.

 

Braids of wind swirl,

thicken the air,

cling to each other.

 

Dust saturates the sky,

glides on a path

of sundrenched wind,

 

rests inside the brittle edges

of curled four wing

saltbush leaves,

 

drips in a thick duffel

across the salt domes.

The cross breeze

 

trapped in sandstone bowls

lunges to root itself

beneath the arroyo lip,

 

slinks like a chuckwalla

into a slickrock fissure.

Wind touches every spine,

 

feather, hand, hoof, stone,

eye open or closed,

petal or leaf.

 

The desert is wrapped in wind,

shaped by its gesture,

clothed in dust.

 

Everywhere the sigh

of dust drenched wind,

the breath of God

 

moving over the flesh

and shadow of God,

the whisper

 

of the sacred

upon the body

of divinity.

David Lee has published 18 books of poetry, including So Quietly the Earth (Copper Canyon Press), selected as one of the 25 Outstanding Books of 2004-2005, all genres, by the New York Library Association. A recipient of multiple grants from both the National Endowment for the Arts and the Humanities, Lee also received the Western States Book Award, Mountains and Plains State Booksellers Award, and Utah Book Award. A Legacy of Shadows: Selected Poems was named the Distinguished Book of Poetry 1999-2000 by the International Directory of Literary Biography. Dave, Jan, and Bud-the-Wonderdawg, all officially retired, vagabond the roadways and back trails of America.