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Roosting

When there’s hardly any light left,

and heat bends to a cooling breeze, 

the quail arrive, making their way 

to the stand of pines on the rise.

One by one, they flap and jump, 

sloppily, to the low branches, 

then walk the length of the limbs 

and hop upwards, until they cluster 

in the crown, defying the gravity 

of their days on the ground, 

swaying as the boughs sway, 

sorting their pecking order 

with a flurry of remonstrances.

Settled, they join in a quiet murmur, 

vespers that bring out the stars.

The quail are gone before sunup.

I wonder how they leave—

a gradual, stairway descent, 

or a fell swoop through the dark?

It’s their daily reckoning, 

forsaking the arms of safety 

when the time is right—a risk 

made ordinary by repetition, 

the peril of being alive.

What the Hawk Said

Let fall a feather 

for someone who needs it.

Watch it spin the air 

like a shuttle of fate, 

and land among thorns—

frayed, yet decipherable.

Weave banded vanes 

to make flight possible

then shed, piece by piece, 

and grow new—

Mitered

between sky and earth, 

alert for the barest 

movement—

Reach out your hand—

I’ll spare you.

Tableau Vivant

This high ledge with a view to the west 

holds a grinding stone like a fallen door—

rose-hued granite worn smooth from the work

of many hands. Just there, a flake of green jasper

on sand—traces of lives in the fullness 

of the land, before ceremony circles were 

scattered, before grasses and water retreated, 

before the boulders grew silent—no one calling 

to far-off companions by striking rocks 

or throwing an echo skyward. We scan 

the archipelago—stone outcrops in a sea 

of creosote and cholla, blackbrush and Joshua trees— 

and a cinder cone with its mask of serenity.