Pentecost Week: Wednesday

If I were obtuse to signs and symbols,

You would make me a mystic yet,

Eager eyes fixed to the skies.

Pentecost week:

Yesterday there was a cloud in my path

For all appearances

Exactly like a dove

Just lifting off in flight--

Or perhaps alighting on some branch,

A deep, fluttering calm,

And I wondered.

Today, sprinkles of sweet rain from heaven.

And lest you say it is spring,

And rain no great thing for May,

I tell you the rain fell upon the desert,

Upon thirsty ground,

Upon weary, haggard land,

Washing it clean,
Quenching deep-rooted thirst.

Desert Morning

Sun is enthroned on airy castle of clouds,
Light cascading in brilliant columns to earth.

Drops of rain splash down;
The low, shrub-like trees
Raise up leafy arms.

I, whose existence is not contingent
On these brief scattered raindrops,
Raise my arms, too,
As though my life depended on it.

Phoenix by Moonlight: On the Last of August

Desert night--

   moon alights on still palms;

City lights

   cannot reach the depths

   of the expanse but yet

   pale stars.

The monsoons have come and gone;

   there is no poetry of rain

   and the air is still--

Still, but devoid of silence.

   Men sit on their porches

   sweating and smoking,

   complacent and cursing.

The road roars

    of constant traffic.

The smoke has fouled the air;

   the city has drowned the night.

No birds, no wildlife--

    only somewhere a cicada drones.

Phoenix, I have seen thee burn,

   flames into ash

in glory of red skies

   and streaming faces.

Can I hope for thee to rise,

   to take flight?

Dare I hope to see

   emerging

Life?