I leave my daughter
behind in my
mother’s city:
the Old Pueblo
all jazzed up now,
but not
while I lived there
Once again, between
golden ages
and silver wings,
the shadow of
my plane
crosses the
freeway
and an outbreak
of turquoise
swimming pools.
Then comes
fields of perfect
geometry, scraped
with lines of a comb
A pipeline of irrigation
feeds along a
daisy chain
that becomes a
dusty knotted string
until
arroyos, arroyos
everywhere
spreading away from
the false summer of
desert December
 |
Schlieren image of shock waves created by a T-38C in supersonic flight.
from NASA.gov
|
Arrival into Seattle
is smooth sailing
over a sparkling
Rainier who has
pulled the snowy
blanket over her head
and sighs for the
young that hide
deep inside her,
heartbeats stilled
breathing slowed
she knows
only to wait
until they are ready
to peer into spring.
The voice of God,
the Captain,
murmurs that we,
the cabin of
honking hooting geese
in stifled V formation,
are cruising
at 16 nautical miles per hour.
Like arcane knowledge
this... saying so
slips off of me
formless
from its blinking
tower.
I think instead
of how my
mother bemoans
the wrinkles
under her arms
because she doesn’t
know or believe that
arroyos are hopeful
because
they lead somewhere
 |
|
Page from Tennen hyakkaku (Tennen's One Hundred Cranes) by Kigai Tennen, Kyoto |
