Desert Riddle

Desert Riddle


It's hot, too late
in the morning
to get cooler until
much later,
a problem
for those of us who
live for the moment.
I'm in the shade of the mulberry,
cool enough
for right now.
The doves calling back and forth
between power wire and locust tree
make it cooler.
Their oo-sounds are blue
and call up the ocean
more than most things
in the desert
in summer.
Yuccas, for example,
or scraggly yellow grass,
or the jagged, barren mountains
unsoftened by green that seem
elemental, ur-mountains,
the moon.
They make me think
I haven't adapted to the desert
despite 30 years here.
Maybe no one does
completely. Maybe
it's better that way:
you're more
temporary, looking on
from a distance,
never fully here--an attitude
I'm sure I prefer
to the other: of possessing
your life
as if it were your property.
Letting go of it, then, becomes
unthinkable, an unnatural
wrenching.
I'd rather
go with the birds:
how you look up at a branch
for no reason, and,
without sound,
a hummingbird
is there,
and, without sound, he's
not there.


Copyright © 2003 Joseph Somoza