There’s a Place in My Heart

There’s a place in my heart

where wild bees hive

their honey sweetens an oak’s swollen belly

There’s a place in my heart

where a lone coyote with grey bark and golden-dried grass for fur

dissolves into the landscape

and collects his parts back into canid

only when he’d like to be seen

There’s a place in my heart

where cottonwood giants borrow clouds from the sky

to carry their seeds

and offer them to the breeze

There’s a place in my heart

where great-horned owls and broad-billed hummingbirds nestle their young

while the sound of a desert river sings

vermillion

saffron

and iridescent-green wings

to beat

back from the south

There’s a place in my heart

where spring withstands time

no borders exist

no overly simplistic and stifling lines

just concentric circles

carved by the beaks of birds of prey

overlapping and intertwined.