Driving to Tucson

It's March and the rows of pecan trees we pass
are dry as the sandy ground. They stand,
unnatural dark pillars in a flat land of desert scrub.
Nothing else here comes above my waist.

We pass a train going east, we head west,
speeding 80 down Interstate 10, the semis
like old men carrying packs walk slower
while our young strangely fit 15-passenger van
sprints past reaching for more road.

Shouldn't it be impossible to move this
many miles in one day? My feet would take
weeks. My breathe and stomach can't catch up.
This hard asphalt knifes, dividing the
desert floor with a long trail of tar.

I want to stand on a distant mesa and become
part of the air, part of the wind that has been trying
mightily for hours to blow us off the road
and place our feet back onto its dusty kin.

Two Easter Poems

Arrest in the Garden
he says he is the one
take him
he is the one we have
come to take
orders given
we obey
taking the healing man
away

Who will let them see now
Who will will let them walk

no one left
just this man
he says
"I am he"
and we fall
to our knees
try to bury
our swords
in the sand


Rooster Crowing
i won't betray
not me
you said i will
not me
not me
i won't betray you
not me
not me
not me

sounds at dawn
i weep

Family

Memory from future
and past guides
her thoughts;
her steps
dance
into
history
and
time
where
fibers,
bones,
sinews,
energies
sing within a
once dormant body.

eating poison

down
drain
down
swirling
lye
corrodes
pipes