Scent of Greasewood in April

The brittlebush flowers have collapsed into yellow stalks
and small scoops of seed pods with limp, flapping wings.
The creosote blossoms are shrivelling
as fuzzy white beads fill each limb.
The landscape is withering, whitening,
Spring will migrate soon,
the quail are more plaintive now, lower pitched,
the rabbits more solemn.

The reptiles have come out in force,
snaking round dessicated seeds
on dusty mounds in a slow breeze.
The cacti are finally ready to reveal their plumage:
banana tops with ribbons, strawberry labia,
sheerest pink soft flowers open
above pocks of needle clusters
on purpling circles.

Whatever I touch spreads to dust:
the woolen brushes on the mesquite tree
or the red seeds along the ironwood's stiff, twisted leaves.
Even the thick yellow palos verde blooms
glide flimsy to a papery carpet,
twittering the shadow beds.

The soft soil is crisp now on my feet. I stop
to hold to a sight, where two dry beds meet:
a strand, hundreds of tiny yellow moons on long thin stalks.

I can see now to the end of the wash
through the first clumps of wood bare in nets of thorn.
Summer is weaving its purity now;
the raven's wings flap like a beaten rug.
All are learning to scatter, to prepare.
The holy sun demands its rituals,
that we cease in our harvest of paradise for a season
for a deeper communion, the joy of monks, the play of lizards.