poetry
Julia Kennedy Kirkland, Larry D. Thomas and Jim Wilson
Landscape of My Father The Tinaja
He smiled then, knowing
there were clouds snagged in his hair,
slate mountain streams reflected in his eyes,
desert grit silted between his toes.
Rocky crags formed in the rifts of his knuckles,
the hoof beats of a stag echoed in his pulse,
a blue-gold arid sunrise spread wide across his heart,
and the harsh cry of all creation sounded
a wild orchestra in his soul.
This was his salvation.
This, his benediction.
This, his home. Nestled
in the ancient,
shrine-like rock
of Hancock Hill,
it sparkles
by Julia Kennedy Kirkland
in the primeval
darkness.
Is it the lost
silver coin
of a god?
Or the stars,
banished
from the cosmos,
assembling
in their secret,
rock-solid
sanctuary
and dropping
to their knees,
for worship?
Javelinas
Tusks
glint in starlight
like shards
of sun-bleached bones.
Swollen
by the presence
of feral hogs,
the herd’s passage
down the arroyo
will jar the darkness
with a distant rumble,
loudening
as it descends
the shuddering flanks
of Hancock Hill,
by Larry D. Thomas
raging
like a black flash flood
to churn the stone-
still pondering
of the water.
by Larry D. Thomas
10
Cenizo
Third Quarter 2016