I'm going to be reading quite a few poems from a new manuscript
entitled Journeys.
So the last of the desert poems is about a wonderful Wildlife
Refuge outside of Albuquerque called Bosque Del Apache.
If the Earth's old bones smile, I hear them.
In the hush of this greenless forest,
shining up to the great clump of salt cedar.
To the black swords of Mesquita.
To the grace of grasses.
Yellow, rust.
If the Earth's old bones smile, I
hear them shining to the strange chirps and chatters.
To the strange birds with necks that flow, and flow.
Canadian geese, sandhill cranes, stirring the air.
Stirring the air.
If the Earth's old bones smile, I
hear them shining in the pools.
In the mallards green shimmer.
In the startled flap.
Filling the blue with the whirl white.
Silent, vast.
Then the tip of the black tip.
Snow geese.
If the Earth's old bones smile, I hear them.
Shining in the white of the majestic crane.
The great hoop.
The white neck flowing, flowing, into the desert grasses.
The white flowing into the smile of old bones.