Cactus I

The night is black

and endless

The sky a constellation of

diamonds across a

velvet ear, the last one round

and full.

Illuminated stands a

cactus, taller than I, sturdy,

her spine straight, her arms outstretched as if

to say

What more? I am here.

One hundred years of solitude

live within her,

She's seen the

ravaging of the piñons,

the harvesting of the

lizards, the

parched earth.

On occasion, when water pours from the sky

She drinks her fill, then stores the rest

for a rainy day.

Feet in mother she knows

from where she came,

Eyes to god she knows that

she does not know.

Oh! To be a cactus beneath the full moon.