North of Wupatki

Later, where junipers gnarl and contort,

a lapsed forest that battens on sun-hammered

hardpan, you hear wind settle down, hear

high desert subsiding to one great quietude

the entire plateau seems to float on. It's then

at the hour when grand stone-ripened times

grow companionable as bat-flitter, Arizona's

pastels turn around, go walking steadily off

into a nightfall that kindles the evening star

for your campfire. As if desert mesas prefer

being listened to that way, constellations

risen up behind them do seem to draw nearer,

do seem to burn more sincerely for never saying

how far they might take you; yet you know yourself

native there, along with the one, the many,

the forever. And, in a hush uttered by nothing

but everything named "creation," a canyon wren

singing to the silence it came from.