The Poems of Our Desert Climate

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• The Poems of Our Desert Climate
• J. Novalis Wolfe

I

Snowmelt lapping tips of "Pink Flame"Nandina beside an open window,Pink petals dripping over berries,Some frozen sound of watery silenceIn a cold Chihuahuan desert.

Our neighborhood trash truck drove byIn the morning with distant pinkish flameIn a watery snow beside sky islandMountains: a quiet, still unravishedThinking of stillness beyond petals.

II

Yet was it more than just one's babbleOf desert space (this sublime limit)Thought before peddled Babeled sense?If pinked petals spoke would we knowNandina, imperfect to pink ears?Beyond numbed words, Thought's sense—its garbagedCraving—merely smocks a still mind.

III

There we go again, the trash truck downOur road like cold unfelt snowmelt gone;Though now cactus appear greener, mesquiteTrees seem like keener streams of color—Bare bright branches in a cold desertClimate. (Perhaps there are places weMay know imperfectly, better than then.) [End Page 111]

J. Novalis Wolfe Hereford, Arizona Copyright © 2024 Johns Hopkins University Press ...