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. 

Clouds without Rain

Four or five raindrops.

Thunderheads darken the mountain,

hover . . . and move on.

Rosh Hashanah

September new year

a northeast wind pelts my cheek

with winter's sharp seeds. 

After a long string of balmy days, a slap of winter. Sunday the southwest wind coasted over the flats like a breeze caressing the ocean; Monday her northeastern sister took over and brought currents of bone-chilling cold. A rain laced with dust from the potato harvest spattered the windows all day as the wind beat at the roof. By afternoon the sun returned, and the clouds lifted to reveal a thick cloak of snow along the spine of the Culebra. 

Widow

Maybe it's a sign that you've had too much solitude when you start naming inanimate objects. It's not just a matter of personifying them -- you start to seek them out, to rely on their reassuring, silent presence. These old wooden fence posts belonged to a ranch that no longer exists; the ranchers and their livestock have long since vanished, but the posts remain.

I call the post on the left "The Widow." The soft, silvered wood reminds me of a widow's shoulders, curved in quiet defense of her grief. I say a silent hello to the Widow whenever I drive by. She acknowledges me, and I acknowledge her.