Mesas

Their walls are steep;
their tops, relatively flat.
They rise from the horizon

like the purple, swollen flesh
of diamondback bites
beyond the slow

oblivion of decay.
For millions of years,
without a perceptible nuance

of mutation, they’ve marked
the vistas of West Texas,
resolute as the set,

centenarian jaws
of an heir to whom, for a very
short time, they’ll be deeded.

Circled by Her Kind

For days the Longhorn cow
hadn’t eaten, the milk
of her strength suckled
by the mouths of old age.

To ward off varmints,
the herd stood side by side
in a circle around her,
loyal to the legends of their breed.

They stood on the hillside
where she lay swaddled in the quilt
of her still fabulous hide,
circled by her kind, her body

cushioned by the blessings
of Indian Blankets
and the heart-shaped leaves
of Blue Violets

anything but Common.

Williams Ranch
(Guadalupe Mountains, Far West Texas)

It sits atop a rock foundation,
a wood-frame home accessible
but by four-wheel drive or foot,

laid out along the western escarpment
of the Guadalupe Mountains
at the edge of Bone Canyon.
Built in 1908, they lugged it's lumber

sixty-five miles by mule train.
I can picture Robert Belcher’s bride
the afternoon of her arrival,
her buttocks aching from the bumpy ride

through creosote, yucca and salt brush,
her lips filmed with salt from the flats
below, running as far as she could see.
It’s said she went back East after one night.