NEW YEARS DAY 2005


The road to the ranch:
Tunnel of dusty branches
and afternoon air
puddling above clumps of cows,
closing the dark eyes of mares

dreaming of spring foals,
sucked dry in whoops by the kids
in the pickup’s back.
The truck hops from one pothole
to another, flushes snakes

from the underbrush,
rattles across dry washboards,
and waits for the boy
to open the barbed wire gate.
Escorted by young plum trees

that may bloom this spring,
we rumble toward the corral
riding the waves of
hummocks, and stop to dump corn-
stalk fodder for the horses.

Yellow bees drinking
from the water tank attract
the kids like magnets;
silent in a small tree: twelve
impeccable white herons.


(Rancho “Las Pericas”, Villa de Ayala, Morelos)