Writers Forum - Northern California

Bat-wing shadows swept across the canyons,
gouging sockets deep in eyeless rocks.
Bone white branches stretched bare prayers to heaven
appealing to a filmy, vacant sky.
Scorched bushes, victims of the winter,
were singed a ginger brown by sudden frost.
The desert floor seemed softened by the colors
of silver, cinnamon, curry, and burnt bronze.
Tossed on the hills, a shiny cache of pennies,
jade Prickly Pear mirrored green the sun,
while buffalo grass threw feathers shooting upward
and Yucca candelabra flamed with spring.
Bleached boulders marked the gutted, flash"flood streambed
where melted snows had earlier tumbled down ""
now abandoned rivers leading nowhere ""
death and lonely lizards ruled the land.

One desiccated plant, still reaching skyward,
was once the proud Agave " desert god "
Its rigid leaves were succulent and shiny
with tentacles and spines to trap its prey.
A decade of slow growth produced no flower;
it stored its sap for one explosive burst...
to die a fallen god, its splendor shattered,
a lifetime spent for one brief summer's bloom.
Now dried and shriveled, leaves a sickly sulphur,
its skeleton an octopus of death,
it lies decaying in the stony rubbish,
its ocher fingers turning into dust.
Within its rotten core a new shoot opens;
green life begins again the desert's reign.
The Indians drank Agave's potent mescal,
and pulque from Agave's roasted mash.
Their visions, chants, and dances told the ritual
of sacrificial death and endless birth.
Bat-wing shadows swept across the canyons,
gouging sockets deep in eyeless rocks.
Bone white branches stretched bare prayers to heaven
appealing to a filmy, vacant sky.
Scorched bushes, victims of the winter,
were singed a ginger brown by sudden frost.
The desert floor seemed softened by the colors
of silver, cinnamon, curry, and burnt bronze.
Tossed on the hills, a shiny cache of pennies,
jade Prickly Pear mirrored green the sun,
while buffalo grass threw feathers shooting upward
and Yucca candelabra flamed with spring.
Bleached boulders marked the gutted, flash"flood streambed
where melted snows had earlier tumbled down ""
now abandoned rivers leading nowhere ""
death and lonely lizards ruled the land.

One desiccated plant, still reaching skyward,
was once the proud Agave " desert god "
Its rigid leaves were succulent and shiny
with tentacles and spines to trap its prey.
A decade of slow growth produced no flower;
it stored its sap for one explosive burst...
to die a fallen god, its splendor shattered,
a lifetime spent for one brief summer's bloom.
Now dried and shriveled, leaves a sickly sulphur,
its skeleton an octopus of death,
it lies decaying in the stony rubbish,
its ocher fingers turning into dust.
Within its rotten core a new shoot opens;
green life begins again the desert's reign.
The Indians drank Agave's potent mescal,
and pulque from Agave's roasted mash.
Their visions, chants, and dances told the ritual
of sacrificial death and endless birth.