Robin and Marline were over for their annual Desert pilgrimage a couple of weeks back.  They stay in the Casita and Robin is a very early riser.  And also a poet.

Here are his reflections on mornings in the desert.

Desert Dream

The desert is an ocean with its life above ground

— after “A Horse With no Name”

In the early dawn of morning, coffee mug in hand,

a quick scramble up the back yard outcrop to perch

above the arid enchantment— plants, animals, rock; 

scrub, agave, cactus, delicate, brutal shapes, sizes, 

bristles, variegated fronds, spikey decaled edges, 

towering granite and conglomerate boulders, 

smoothed, weather grated into sand hues of browns, 

burnt sienna, chips of sparkling mica amid the grit, 

clumps, splashes of red, mauve, yellow, orange flora— 

creation evolved, adapted. Some not so enduring 

as scattered coyote bone, skeletal husks of spent 

saguaro lay bare amongst the sage green tones 

of this barren sparseness lingering beneath the sky’s 

unending blue, edged in a flock of puffy cumulus 

drifting across the far horizon, small birds chattering, 

scurrying seed amongst the sagebrush, ever warry 

of the vultures scanning, circling high above the giant 

boulders stacked in odd and precarious formations 

(by what hand or god), hanging out in mute anticipation 

like numbed bells, their soundless state, mine, struck 

in the harsh call of a cactus wren, an aircraft’s drone 

towards a destination, a musky snort of a wandering 

javelina sniffing out insects, nibling prickly pear, as

the heightening sun’s arc outlines a shadow profile 

of armed saguaros that creep, tilt across the scree, 

a lone monarch butterfly flutters a no hurry path—  

the world let go in a moment’s breath of desert air.