Summer
It’s summer in the wild dunes of Coyote Beach.
Sparrows, falcons, doves
Flutter their feathers toward white skies.
The tides cackle too, and the whirlwind
Sweeps in from both edges along the yellow sand.
Parachutes of colorful umbrellas,
Canopies of whistling pines,
Cast shade over the rays.
Sprouting seedlings sprawl across the dunes
Like ants crawling in beehives,
With the earth’s immortal, gentle gyrations.
It’s a season for cactus spines to rest on edges,
Breaking beyond horns’ blare and sagging bark.
It’s a season when the sun dances on water,
Smiling from its azure on a golden wreath.
Happiness
I remember those days, waiting for summer,
Whispers in the citadel of knowledge,
Hoping the barn owl would fly from the palm trees
So we could bask on the beach.
With picnic boxes, omelets, pies,
Cheeses, ice creams, strawberries,
We laid ourselves on the serene beach,
Feeling the solitude of the sun.
We cast off the boulders on our hearts,
Those pillars of endless hieroglyphs—
Manure to our brown soil,
Decayed in our summer solstice.
Then, our thoughts raced like waves
Over granite’s many surfaces,
Feeling the earth’s fresh breath.
Flowers, trees, and buds
Gathered in lush vegetation,
Stamping and thumping to drum rhythms,
Dancing to the waves of ancestral folklore.
The Grand Canyon
The towering heights of the Grand Canyon rise
In the embers of a scorching summer.
Umbrellas dot the white skies;
Climbers, voyagers traverse the southern plains.
For two centuries, these mountains have stood—
An unmovable feast, guarded by Arizona natives,
Holding firm to their treasure.
With hunting steps, they dance,
Smiles bright, drums echoing in crescendo,
Moving, moving, like spirits.
Not even the blazing sun,
At one hundred degrees,
Can stop the simmering Colorado,
Waiting to ferry boats and ski boards.
Cholera Outbreak
At the first crow in 1854,
Six hundred lay dead on Broad Street, London—
Stools, vomiting, fevers.
The city, once solitary,
Suddenly a pit of graves,
Where vultures craned their necks
To feast upon the corpses.
Bodies stacked like blocks,
After drinking cholera’s deadly cup
That poisoned pipes, canals, seas.
Still, its ghost lingers,
Across shores of homeless lambs,
In the corridors of toothless birds,
Near the fire’s edge.
I beat the gong in the mountains,
Call to the Horn of Africa, the Sahara Desert,
Mount Kilimanjaro, the Zambezi—
Let the waters be purged.
Twists
The ram and ewe both sprout from earth’s breath,
From the mold of the earth and its winds.
But the ram says the ewe’s fur is ruffled,
Not in the circle of his brown coat.
Yet, the ewe bears a calf, brown and white,
Grazing on green fields, beneath the sun,
With gusts of wind tearing curtains
In the earth’s mirage.
How can two arcs of a rainbow
Bend over seas and lakes,
Yet cast black morsels in discord?
How can two white flowers, anther and stigma,
Pollinate the soul they share
Yet throw their stars into an abyss?
Tomorrow, the sun will shine again,
Forests will shed their leaves,
But the twisted horizon will remain.
