Even the saguaros
are stressed
with this heat and drought
falling over before
bulldozers touch them
collapsing before
buffelgrass burns them
each an individual
to be mourned
each pareidolic shape
sorely missed
by nesting wrens
by pollinating bats
by Tohono O’odham
by merchants of the Sonoran panorama
their stories about long ago
storms and catastrophes
told with hand over mouth
are now cached by packrats
in nocturnal burrows
under palo verde trees
remember their arms bent up
that called
help help
like semaphore flags?
Hope flees
this landscape
like a dissipating
cloud
dry spines
grasp at her wispy sweater
snag an indivisible thread
stay stay
with us
—
Michele Worthington lives in Tucson, AZ where the Sonoran Desert, urban sprawl and our unacknowledged apocalypse inspire her writing. She has had some poems published and some photography used and has won some contests. Nothing terribly life changing. It is the rejections that keep her grounded.
