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.