Around our immediate neighborhood there are very few of the imposing succulents that are wild desert yucca plants. But along our route to Tucson, there is a section of highway 77 that seems to run through a veritable little forest of them.
The other day, as we drove along there in the early morning, I caught sight of their long shadows reaching across the asphalt. It gave me a vision of them as a crowd lining the road, an image perhaps influenced by the fact that this section of road is also used for both a marathon and a bicycle race annually.
Yet at the same time, there was the strong sense of desert solitude.
This first poem, a tanka, attempts to bring that quick imagery together.
Wild Yuccas
See the crowd of them
cheering along the roadside
waving their pennants
while their shadows stretch out long
lonely over the desert
I love the old color term “ashes of roses”…
Where sunset meets east,
and where east meets the mountains,
ashes of roses.
This haiku was written just today, as we received our first, slight rainfall of the winter. La Niña has not been kind to us, so even a little rain is a treasure now.
It’s been so dry here.
The first rainbow of winter
now makes my heart sing.
I like that ashes of roses phrase.
Oh, that tanka does just what you want it to do. The two truths held together....