Sergio A. Ortiz paints his poetry with recurring images of birds and old trees and abstractions like desperation and desire, or “The roof” to cure loneliness where the poet “loved a man while dancing.”

In the poem “Crossing the Golden Gate Bridge” by Elizabeth Elliott, the driver depends on the cables that hold up the bridge suspended “like belief in a higher power,” but fear of the big earthquake lingers. What then?

I went today to the High Place
The vision place,
The seeing place,
I went up today to our place, high up in the hills.

I’d stayed away for oh so long
For so long,
Not knowing why,
I’d stayed away for so long, down where the mortals dwell.