Etchings
The one-seed juniper defiant
in a sand-drenched wash
grasps against wind and rain.
Earth engraved by crawling roots
broad sap-scented trunk tanned soft
like deer hide now enfolding
barbed wire. Resilience—
a word catching fire—as maps
drawn by imprisoned ghosts
blaze beyond the horizon.
A black widow weaves between
amber drops and metal-shag flesh.
True and False, East to West
after Arthur Sze
Raspberries bud like nipples laced in green
Catbird in thickets chatters question marks
Mushroom sprouts a Vietnamese bamboo cap
Buddha sentinels a storehouse of spines
Granite turtle turns to stare into a chipmunk’s ink-eyes
Sand-hued July grain fields slice the horizon
Tattered ghosts and witches splatter on barbed fences
Mustard lines unfurl to infinity
Cottonwoods slither along dry creek beds
Neon signs blare wares in empty deserts
The Blue Hour
Brittle bones clutch at spruce roots
scrawled by hatchet and maul
spiral for shambled rock-walls scattered
in pewee-lyrick’d forests
chase the cobalt dome, slapped ashen,
whose eyes now open