High Desert Arizona


Like and old-timer
easy with hard luck
will roll up pantleg
and shirtsleeve
to show what
a snapped cable
or a black widow
can do,
the land here
bares its stories
about where wind makes its rounds
on rock,
has taught ridgeline
junipers to twist;
about where water went
and changed
its mind,
where a scrub oak
wanted so bad
for water,
it lay down on
its side and
cracked granite
to have it.

- Shelia Sanderson