And the Fireflies

 

And the fireflies

break upwards into

a strange aerial motility

like thousands of small

children with galactic

filaments for wings

climbing the rungs

of an esophageal matrix

from a minor dream;

their tails bent caduceus-like,

wrapped around

luminescent

jet-packs,

as they can

be seen taking

off all over

southern Arizona

methodically,

like

hot-air

balloons

rising

into the green

mist,

the flat soup

of sky

shimmering

in waves

of receeding

jelly-like plasma;

this membrane,

this transparent tarp—

inversion layers

sandwiched like

discrete parts

of a medieval

song cycle,

distinct

yet

connected

together

by more

than just

the air.

The buttes

Stalagtiting

downward

in flat preliminaries

of frown—we are dry here;

the face of this land

holds no tears;

moisture condenses

into small swarms of flies;

clumps of saguaro

flower inadvertently

precariously nestled amidst

adobe style-motels,

owl-nesting mounds,

unknown Zuni, Uwanami

petroglyphs—phosphemes

of a strange arid tongue

whose echo still

resonates in the dry

valley. Thus,

It has no bones

and grass will not grow

along its sandy escarpments;

the horses do not drink

from mostly dry

mineral wells

in this

place of sediments.

Coyote’s laughter,

is the nocturnal

sunlight

of a strange tongue

which appears

every evening

clothed in the invisible

gestures

of the desert.

It smiles

un-noticed perhaps,

here where

most things are

simply

not visible

and where

variations

in the refractions

of light

are called by

the names of

familiar animals

long extinct.

 

JZRothstein 2012 (edited 3/21/2014