One More Flowered Year

Listen!
High atop a distant mountain peak
Rumbling thunder flirts
Promises rain

Below, the desert hears
The storms of autumn speak
Knows they foretell spring
Primps her dust
Thrusts her seeds upward
Closer to the plain

And I?
Old, I cherish these
My dwindling days

Know I may not see
Another blossomed spring
And roam the desert’s face
In rare opulently flowered years

I wake each dawn,
The hills a lawn of lilac--
Find the place
Where orange poppies blaze--
For beauty’s sake
I weep at baby-blue-eyes
Or walk until my knees
Drip yellow pollen
From waist-high waving desert gold

Above a mustard sea
Of tiny goldfield
Violet-blue spikes of brodiaea
Seem to float

Sunny coreopsis
Nod beneath lavendar phacelia--
Lupine’s royal purple coat
Dims orange mallow

Dry brown riverbeds
Strewn with scarlet mariposa
Face feathery princes’ plums
In lemon regalia
That dance above a field
Blazing magenta with owl’s clover

Inside the heart
Of amethystine five-spots
I seek the cluster
Of five magenta dots
Find their counterpart
Black in scarlet mariposa hidden

Then I gasp
At red-hot paintbrush pokers
That lure the eye from
Inch-high orange-throated yellow gilia
Above which seem to sway
Pink fringed onion

Beneath these weaves
An oriental carpet--
Dark magenta purple-mat
Interlaced and intertwined
With lavendar linanthus

Dusk nears.
Tiny white evening snow
Unfurls pink stems,
Sweetly scents already heady air

Atop a hill
I stand near trembling pom poms
Ashake upon a ring
Of ancient creosote,
Look down upon a desert
Grown bright
With Joseph’s coat

I taste the names--
Savor the rich bouquet--
Hide them
Deep inside my heart
To cheer me on some dry and dusty day

Dizzied with color and delight
I pray

Lord!
I am old
And hold your colors
Doubly dear—
Perhaps you’ll grant one wish?

I beseech of thee
Just one more
Flowered year