Poems

Stella's Garden

There's a sound the desert makes
behind your wind chimes a half mile off
like freight trains in full daylight
sunlight on dry mesquite (can you hear it?)
like absence, the sound
after sound

What you really mean to say
is: listen
that's a cactus wren
above the skitter of quail on sandstone
and that, the coatimundi
who drinks from the koi pond
while Cooper's hawk sighs
and circles home

We've all heard that coyote asks
his trick questions at twilight
when rabbits mistake desire for song
and pairs of owls answer
in their own hollow
dialect

All inference gone by full night
javalinas -- eight of them
barge through your chicken wire
knock over geraniums and root up
your favorite cholla
in a commotion of grunts
and breaking terra cotta

But this morning
the fur and bones your shovel finds
underneath the creosote bush
was simply too new to read
this thistled parable
or too thirsty for the relief of evening
and lay down just long enough
to be sung to sleep