and the fly to start buzzing
right now
How do they and
all the birdsongs know to stop
and wait

while the sun
climbs up the other side of
Kitchen Mesa sending rose glints
into the sky
but not yet, not quite touching
the soft red earth
where I stand
two ravens know to swoon
past with a soft, throaty greeting
quickening trills and twitters
there in the gulch
below

the sun’s glowing
right now
the purest white
down the Dakota Sandstone
caressing
purple mudstone
where fossils still lie.
—
Rae Marie Taylor performs on Spoken Word stages in Quebec and the American Southwest. Author of the poetry CD Black Grace, Rae’s The Land: Our Gift and Wild Hope also won the 2014 Colorado Independent Publishers’ Merit Award and was Finalist in the 2013 New Mexico-Arizona Book Awards (environment).