Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arizona. Show all posts

Saturday, January 27, 2024

The Dust Comes Out Like Stars

(Scratching Out This New Arizona Life)

 

In the air,

the scent of mesquite trees

and fry bread.

 

By the side of the road,

a dark head bobbing

above a collection

of turquoise and silver rings.

 

On my skin,

a touch of needling sun

like fresh stitching on a wound

too long held open.

 

Jesus healed with spit and dust.

 

A vermilion flycatcher,

like blood confetti

dripping from branch,

to branch,

to branch—

 

let’s me get closer

each time he sees us,

 

my hands full of mud.

 

 

© 2024 Jennifer Wagner

Wednesday, October 25, 2023

Hot Pink October

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

It’s still a few weeks away from the yellow-gray of November.  And even further from here.  In the desert, the air has shifted to cooler—not 118, but now 80.  The heat is more of a hug than a grizzly’s maul.  The Valley of the Sun is not cool and dreary come autumn.  It’s a valley of a different color.  Kind color—sweet, perhaps.  And it feels more like the mountaintop.  After all, we survived summer. 

 

bougainvillea

a wave of color

at summer’s finish line

 

 

© 2023 Jennifer Wagner

 

 

dVerse Haibun Monday: Fall foliage or Spring blossoms

(I’m posting too late for the link.) 

OLN