The Warm and Golden Air

poems of a Sonoran summer

The desert is a place of contrasts. Last week I wrote about the early heat and the sense of doom in nature. This week I am writing about the many lives resident in my very small garden. Both aspects are very real elements of living here.

Desert Daybreak

All in the warm and golden air
We wander in the garden where
A moment hence a rabbit sat
Upon the grass and pressed it flat
With tuft of tail. His rose-pink ears
Just hearing us, he disappears
As soon as we step out to see
The velvet morning. Vanished, he!
But now instead we walk along
And listen to the busy song
Of birds, the desert-dwellers now
That stay through summer days. And how
They chatter! One young bird demands
A feeding and his parent lands
To stuff his crop with early food.
And through the thin-leafed neighborhood
There flutter many bright-eyed things
Through wiry branches. See the wings
Of phainopepla, white-patched black,
Lift on the morning breeze, while back
A woodpecker flies through the trees;
Or hear the thrasher’s whistle seize
Attention though the bird’s unseen
Amid the last of springtime’s green.
Hear comments of the cactus wrens,
Or whir as doves fly from the fence.
So many things are busy here
Within this shining dawn, this sheer
Cacophony of sound. It fills
The ears—a melody that stills
Dubiety of morning, while the haze
Of dusty heat foretells the day’s
Drift toward the solstice. Summer’s blue
Wraps round the small things singing through
The season while the earnest sun
Vaults up above the mountains. Day’s begun.

---

I see the mountains
through a thousand atmospheres
which rise at daybreak.

---

And the saguaro cacti are in bloom. Bats are among the saguaro’s natural pollinators.

Blue midnight harbors
splendor of saguaro blooms,
bats' wings flickering.

---

If you enjoy my work, you can order a copy of my full-length poem book…

…available in paperback or on Kindle. Or to simply support the ongoing writing of poetry here in the desert, perhaps buy me a coffee! Well, actually it will be a cup of tea…