A Desert Year: 22 September

[lnhammer]

    From inside a wash
coyotes watch the sunset,
    perched on a streetlight
a falcon waits for sunrise --
    both events, today,
at points due east and due west,
    a balanced moment
at the equinoctial pause:
    today, high noon comes
halfway down the road of sky,
    tonight, the night is
half the length of a full day,
    an astronomers'
and weathermen's observance
    that's barely noticed
in the whirl of daily lives:
    time never pauses,
not for us nor for nature,
    and seasons turn on
the earth's orbit and axis.
    Mice always scurry,
rabbits always twitch and hop --
    when the sun comes up
the falcon swoops over scrub,
    as the sun goes down
the coyotes trot away
to begin the nightly hunt.

Envoy

    In the growing dark,
a pack-rat peeks out and sniffs,
    a nighthawk takes off,
and the coyote trots off
to begin the nightly hunt.

—22-24 September 2009

The current idea is to write a choka for each equinox and solistice, focusing on a different time of day (autumnal/sunset, winter/midnight, spring/dawn, summer/noon). We'll see if I continue with the conceit.

---L.

Comments

[lnhammer]

:-D

Balancing the images took work: I had to reorganize the first draft to make everything in the first half static, shifting over to images of movement.

---L.