brown reclusive Chiricahua wilderness,

waterless stucco shakedown,

magnetic arid atmosphere of swerving dry lines

becoming endless roads trailing everywhere

an infinite photograph perpetually procreating

nested under this impossible sky,

and this vast azúcar agua bowleg horizon

hums her sweet old song,

long after final footsteps ascend

Ms. Yucca, why meet here alone,

apart from green treed city parks

espresso and French pastries

sisters sharing their kindness heart to heart

eyes showering sweet empathy?

Ms. Yucca, why does this ground ache around you,

these thirsty feet somehow tolerating

sun’s searing abuse so worn from walking?

Ms. Yucca, why sit in these mountains,

trusting more empty promises of better growing seasons,

signed contracts solicited from feel good medicine men?

Ms. Yucca, could we at last make our peace,

resolve the heart mind suspicion

that separates your kind and mine?

Ms. Yucca standing before me alive,

leaves shooting skyward

migrating with familiar rhythms,

sentient being so well poised with answers,

your subtle richness

imbeded within God’s ageless prophecy:

“to endure here in Yuccaland,

each single solitary mind

must bend nightly

to contritely drink from this cracked

fearful historically resolute

unrepentant earth”

5/21/89

Chiricahua Mts