Juniper. Quince.

Robert Ronnow
The Imaginary i

Juniper. Quince.

Canaigre a leafy buckwheat
right here in the high desert!
Drive an hour, hike an hour,
find some shade, sit in dirt.

Identify plants, photograph rocks.
Raven and scrub jay.
Coleogyne and cercocarpus,
single-leaf ash and squawbush.

What else have I seen?
Juniper, the source of all penumbra.
The rift that took the river eons to carve,
caves for cougar and Anasazi.

The sand and soil are Mars red,
iron oxides deposited by ocean
200 to 20 million years ago.
That’s nuthin compared to the wind in my head!

Meanwhile it’s Spring back east,
geopolitical and existential dramas
perdure without surcease,
our quince has blossomed and slumbered.

Joint-fir, ephedra, arid
sagebrush and rabbitbrush.
But juniper berries stay
nuclear blue-green!