Desert Air

Warm wind rakes the humming woods and sets the stars twinkling. Doors bump, and the roof-scraping branch groans. Orion leaves the sky early now, eager to catch the sun. The little dipper has tipped on end. When the waning moon rises, the chorus of crickets is still in full song. All trace of winter has vanished from the soft scented air. Yesterday afternoon, I saw butterflies everywhere, and hardly a tree was without its singing birds. In all this exuberance of sound and movement, I alone encounter stillness, I alone engage silence.

( Sunday Verse )

Sunday Afternoon

The day has turned hot, and a thin overcast makes the sky a powdery shade of blue. A slight dampness hints of the tropics. There might be rain within a few days. For now, there are butterflies. They particularly enjoy the lilacs, and the bush is seldom without a few pairs of dark wings fluttering from blossom to blossom. The day brightens or dims with the mood of the sky, the shadows fading in and out. The cat lies quietly in a shaft of light, breathing slowly. I merely wait.

Evening

For a while, the evening sky held swaths of lilac and dogwood pink, exactly matching the blooming trees. Wherever sky shone through the green mass of the western woods, it was as though a forest of blooms had taken root beyond the oaks and pines. The turn toward night sent the last rays of light higher, to wash those clouds which have emerged from the overcast, and the rising tint was like the essence of that phantom wood ascending, passing through the clouds to soon vanish from a sky now chilled to icy blue. The last of day's birds are singing songs of dusk, and it is now the turn of the actual dogwood blossoms and lilacs to fade and vanish with those songs and the sky's last light. Long hours loom before the waning moon will rise and its paler light revive those flowers as faded ghosts of themselves. This show itself has scant days left to run as spring surrenders more and more of its varied colors to the overwhelming green. The first cricket chirps. I am consumed with thoughts of transience.