Bosque del Apache Wildlife Refuge
            
             if the earth’s old bones smile
I hear them
in the hush of this greenless forest
shining up to the gray clump of salt cedar
          to black swords of mesquite
          to the grace of grasses, yellow, rust

             if the earth’s old bones smile
I hear them shining
to strange chirps and chatters
to strange birds with necks that flow and flow
Canadian geese, sandhill cranes
stirring the air, stirring the air

             if the earth’s old bones smile
I hear them shining
in pools, in the mallard’s green shimmer
in the startled          FLAP
filling the blue with a whirl white
                         silent, vast
then dip of black tip
                       snow geese, snow geese

             if the earth’s old bones smile
I hear them
shining in the white of the majestic crane
the great Whoop
white neck flowing, flowing
into desert grasses
white flowing
into the smile of old bones.

© Pat Mora; poem from Communion