A harvest of prickly pears
Gathered like grapes,
Inflamed, fire orange,
Spewing red juice
For doves to forage
But the cactus dying
Has more to say
About the curl of love enduring
And what's left of skin exposed,
The sun-filled crown of one last flower
Like a candle along the plateau.
2.
Blue eucalyptus leaves
Are weighed down by silver,
Dead red leaves below,
Astringent needles,
The sway of distant boughs.
These trees hold the white light
In a living quiet,
Pocked and hammocked by webs
They offer labyrinthine stories
Of joys and sorrows, love and war,
How the purity of birth festered into beauty.
3.
Swamp grass with its final psalm
Of wide-quilled branch
And giant stem
Bows all its blades
In harmonious rows.
The sun hits the cheap grass,
Stalks buckle under
Ores of seed.
Spider grass pounces
When the wind overwhelms it;
Uphold it must elegance.
