Sleepers Awake

Snow melts in warm dust --

under a net of pebbles,

the snake's eye opens. 

In the desert a whole ecosystem thrives under the dry topsoil, where it's protected from the hard winds, extreme temperatures and predators of land and sky. As the days grow warmer, new generations of rabbits, mice and birds populate the landscape. Underground the snakes and insects begin to stir, their spines and wings unfolding as the snow disappears from the mountains. Soon the rattlers and bull snakes will come to the surface again in search of  prey and water. 

Sentinel

The crow guards two posts;

at the thud of my footsteps,

he rises skyward. 

This pair of old corral posts stands about two miles from the house. Those faded wooden stakes remind me of a gate without a fence, the entry to a parallel world. One day as I was jogging up the dirt road at my usual slow pace, I saw an enormous crow perched on one of the posts. He sat there, a dark sentinel, as I thudded up the road, then slowly lofted away as I approached. For a moment, I thought he would let me get close enough to touch him, but he took to the sky -- as I would, if I had wings. 

April Wind