Their nocturnal journey almost over,
The coyotes’ melodic yelps
Woke me at 5 AM, the Big Bend,
In the distance the Christmas
Mountains.
The day before, I saw a ridge where
Javalinas had eaten the hearts
Of low to the ground lechugillas.
Hiking Terlingua Creek
I found a heart-shaped rock
I could see through: flat land for miles
Dotted by sage and bladed plants,
Not standing cactus
But ones low to the ground,
Oval-shaped,
Leaves like pillows to beautify a sofa.
Needles stuck to my thumb
And index finger. Both bled a while.
Later I felt a hardness, a soreness
In my thumb and thought poison
But nothing to worry about here,
The beginning of March.
At dark the wind dies. What trees
Are waist-high have branches we
Turned to firewood.
I remember mesas at sunset
Part red, part blond;
The vein Jim found in a rock wall
In Terlingua; moist mountain
Lion tracks and tracks
Of deer above a badger hole.
God forgot to make badgers humble,
Scotty said. He’s ten years gone.
I remember the ghost town’s
Stone walls of houses,
And above them the wedding’s guitar
Music. The rabbits, roadrunners.
Jim and Scotty
Hurled stones across the Rio Grande
Into Mexico, Pas Lajitas
Marsh grass and scrub, the other
Side.