Villanelle for the San Bernardino Valley
Jonathan Ponder
Crickets chirp in quick trochaic beats.
Close by coyotes reject regular rhythm
to shred the air with haunting, ragged shrieks.
I stand outside my orange grove’s dead trees.
We all find our own way to pray. Some drone
like crickets chirping quick trochaic beats.
Others watch the sun set over tumbleweeds
that hunch in open fields and wait for wind
to shred the air with haunting, ragged shrieks.
But I cannot bear to pray words of belief
as if the air around my mouth was combed
by these crickets chirping quick trochaic beats.
Washed in asphalt waves of dying heat,
I believe in mountains and the need to roam
and shred the air with haunting, ragged shrieks.
Sunset stipples the mountains green and pink.
A prayer’s words fail this wildness and form:
Crickets chirp in quick trochaic beats
in the shredded air of haunting, ragged shrieks.