Don Gray
Art Essays, Art Criticism & Poems
Desert Cumulus...A PoemMuscular cumulus massive and strong; white-knuckled fists punch holes in the sky; clenched into bloodlessness, clenched in magnificence. Swelling, growing prelude to a storm, parching life's reprieve, prelude to a symphony of thunder and of rain. A sonora dove's soprano call; chipmunk, pale stripe down its side, nosing desert grit, quick little digs with furious paws; stretch full length upon the ground. Then on hind legs like a little man, hands to chest, a peddler dealing his wares. Doves roost, sparrows fly, palo verde bloom the last of their yellow blooms; doves fly, planes fly, ants crawl, flies buzz; slabs of prickly pear defined by sun and shade, red, ripe fruit adorned, belove'd of wild pigs. Golden grass; woodpeckers flap in the ocotillo, leafless from drought, seeming dead yet confident of resurrection. Late afternoon long shadows; blue rabbits leave their cooling scrapes to move and feed. A cottontail lopes through sun-dappled weeds; cactus wren nosy; the chipmunk drinks from the cooler-water pool. Three sonora doves quietly sit in a dying palo verde, green needles sparse amid peeling brown boughs. Palo verde and saguaro, the cactus wren exploring its harvest of sensual red fruit; players on the desert stage, backdrop of noble clouds, all in the arms of...immensity. Copyright by Don Gray
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