Cibola 5

Beginnings (cont’d)

I’ve been to the desert southwest, I know how it’s pictured, & I swear this is that light. What so many sun-starved souls travel the breadth of the continent for: that blood- drenched gold. While down below in the shadow, all around me the dooryard birds–Carolina wren, white-throated sparrow, cardinal, titmouse, chickadee, junco, goldfinch & mourning dove– are wagering every note they have. The pileated woodpecker uses the whole cove for a resonator, a fast rattle of dice on the bone of a locust. As the light spreads, every bush & tree on the ridgeside stands distinct, singing in the dawn wind. I see roots from underground, shining tips of feathers. The blue down here is the color of an ordinary horizon, a thinness, a spreading of rhizomes under my skin–the globe-encircling miles of veins–grown feathery like the feelers of a night-flying moth. I can hear what shrews are up to in their tunnels & the newborn bears in their dens, blindly sucking the blue milk of a huge & dreamless sleep. My breath tastes like the wood smoke from my chimney, oak & cherry–now rising, now running along the ground, blue, blue . . .