Rattling across a rocky trail just after sunrise
having hiked up and down Pilot Knob
950 feet elevation
one mile
straight up
my temple
to you
gone three years
and the dog you spoke a secret language to
gone one year
many are gone
but living still
in every
breath
dust mote
granite outcropping
righteous extrusive igneous rocks strewn hither across the Sonora
the black jeep
rumbles along
pokes through
early morning
shafts of sunlight
and I catch
an awkward flutter
a fist-sized bird
flying across
my path
weighed down
by the pink underbelly of
an improbably large lizard
hoisted in its tiny talons
and I squawk with laughter
shocked again,
of the absurdity
the cruelty
the cleanliness
of life and death
and life again
in the desert
