We lost old Bill of old age last summer.

first light

I let Diego out at first light,
felt so finite under fading stars,
I heard a distant dog's bark carried
on the breeze
from the village, it
sounded like Bill's bark, a
soulmate I just buried and at that
moment

dawn was a maroon thing of beauty,
the crown of the sun
appeared
hurling sparks,
loss became a river that
flowed away from me
and near the river
a coyote yipped a frenzy
of dawn songs

the wolves of Afghanistan must've heard
and replied:
"here are the ruins of war"

loss is mostly everywhere
but dawn
spills its fiery light misted up
forever young
across all the rivers of earth.

On Graciela Iturbide’s Mujer Angel Sonora Desert, 1980

Here is where she enters Mexico.

Black and white photograph penetrates the soul

like a sacrament,

easy intimacy with the eyes, as if my

angel woman, Seri goddess,

boom box swinging

in her right hand, in her left

she’s pulling something hidden

from the rock,

long black

bridal veil of hair

maybe listening to hip hop

or be bop,

hiking down from the mountain-

top in white billowing

dress

her face a hidden

determination to be one

with/

the opposite of

the desert.

She descends sin nombre

into the sun-

basted,

flat

Sonoran badlands

where she’ll lose her mysteries

to that rigid overheated ocean

where scant rains fall,

here is where she enters my dream.

This was published by artist Leon Loughridge's DCPrint Folio this year in Denver. Poem is based on b & w photo by Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide. Enjoy. Peace.