Two Birds

A small bird's question:

three rising notes

before the gathering snow.

Desert thaw --

across snow and sand

dances the first sparrow.

Iron Grass

Iron tufts of hair:

drought has hardened you,

wind gently combs you.

These gray grasses, toughened by sun and drought, embody what I love about this micro-environment. The metallic blades of these grass tufts will never see green again, but they'll be here for years, simply enduring. I love the colorless, indestructible presence of these plants, which are no longer living but are nevertheless still here. They are survivors of prolonged thirst and parched air, and like many survivors, there's a profound stillness about them. I imagine that even the harsh wind slows down to touch them gently.

Scouring Season

Spring is not

the growing season

but the scouring season,

when hard winds

batter the earth to bone.

Lunar Maria

A rising moon

meets the basalt hill

at the slope of earth's memory.

The inception of the Rio Grande Rift in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado was accompanied by voluminous mafic volcanism preserved in part as erosional remnants on an intrarift horst within the current axial rift graben of the San Luis Valley.

Journal of Geophysical Research, vol. 96, no. B8: "Oligocene Basaltic Volcanism of the Northern Rio Grande Rift: San Luis Hills Colorado"; R.A. Thompson, C.M. Johnson and H.H. Mehnert; 1991.

* * * *

The basalt hills behind our house are ancient shapes, the soft aftermath of ancient volcanic activity. In the evening the hills seem to embody the earth's memory, gently sloping into darkness.

Basalt is an igneous rock, porous yet dense, the color of charcoal. The lunar maria are the basalt plains of the moon. Once believed to be seas, the mare basalts are actually vast, dark plains created by volcanic explosions.

Beach Combing in Winter

With snakes asleep

and prickly pear softened by snow

we wade into the winter desert.

One of my favorite activities in the world is a land-based version of "beach combing" -- wandering through the sparse ocean of sage, rabbitbrush and prickly pear to hunt for rocks, bones, sticks, colored glass and other bits and pieces. I once found some casino tokens that had been corroded to black slivers by the sun, and occasionally I'll come across someone's tidy graveyard of beer bottles and coffee cans. I feel safer beach combing in the winter, when the rattlesnakes are hibernating underground. The thorns of the cacti are either soft and mushy after a snow or brittle and frail after a few dry weeks, so they're not as hazardous to the feet.

This land looks like an ancient, dry lake bed . . . because that's what it is. That's la Culebra in the background, the mountain range named for its serpentine curves.

Old House

House of the absent heart:

your cracked eye

holds a memory of fire.

The Visitors

After summer winds,

their scattered belongings

transformed by winter sky

This land appeared to be uninhabited until the owners temporarily took over in the summer. Like everyone who visits the Valley for the first time, or who innocently attempts to set up house here, they weren't ready for the wind. They set up a tent for their fishing gear and cooking equipment -- the wind blew it down. They installed a plastic shed to store their things -- the wind ripped it apart. So now our visitors have given up, it seems, and have left their belongings to the vagaries of the wind.

Ever since they surrendered to the forces of nature, their stuff hasn't gone anywhere.