ALL WHO WANDER

Arizona, Deming's most recent books include Writing the Sacred Into the Real and Genius Loci, from which "Driving Through Nature" was taken. She has won numerous prizes including the Walt Whitman Award and a Pushcart Prize.

DRUM HADLEY: A cowboy and rancher on the New Mexico-Arizona border for 40 years, Hadley's books include Strands of Rawhide and Spirit by the Deep Well Tank. A founding member of the Malpai Borderlands Group, an ecosystem management project, his poems in this issue are from Voice of the Borderlands.

HERSHMAN JOHN: Navajo-born for the Deer Spring People and the Bitter Water People, John's poems and short stories have appeared in numerous journals with a book of poems to be published next year by the University of Arizona Press. He also teaches at Phoenix College.

RITA MAGDALENO: A recreational riverrunner, Magdaleno's poem "River Run" appeared in Fever Dreams. The native Arizonan teaches in Tucson and wrote a poetic memoir, Marlene Dietrich, Rita Hayworth, & My Mother, published by the University of Arizona Press.

CARL MARCUM: A teacher at DePaul University in Chicago, Marcum earned an MFA in creative writing at the University of Arizona, received a fellowship from Stanford University and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and in 2001 published Cue Lazarus. "Blind Contour: Night Sky" is from his forthcoming Constellation.

DAVID RAY: Author of The Music of Time and 15 other collections of poems, Ray lives with his poet-wife, Judy, in Tucson. For information on his books and major awards, see www.davidraypoet.com.

JUDY RAY: Living in Tucson far from her native England, Ray's recent books of poetry include Sleeping in the Larder and Fishing in Green Waters. For information, see www.davidraypoet.com/JudyRay.

ALBERTO RIOS: Author of nine books of poetry and a memoir, Rios lives in Chandler and has taught at Arizona State University for 25 years. A recent finalist for the National Book Award, his latest book of poems is The Theater of Night.

BARRIE RYAN: Ryan's works include How the World Was Given to Us and Creek Ceremony, which contains her poem "Cradle." She taught writing at the University of Arizona and at Pima Community College, has been a social worker with homeless persons, and volunteers with hospice.

JEANNINE SAVARD: An associate professor of English at Arizona State University, Savard has taught in ASU's MFA Creative Writing Program since 1992 and published several volumes of poetry, including Trumpeter and My Hand Upon Your Name.

RICHARD SHELTON: An award-winning regents professor in creative writing at the University of Arizona, Shelton has written nine poetry books and hundreds of journal articles. He has won many honors, including a Pulitzer Prize nomination. His works include Going Back to Bisbee, The Tattooed Desert and others. He has taught at UA for 46 years and won acclaim for his prison-based writing workshops.

PEGGY SHUMAKER: After growing up in then-rural Tucson, Shumaker became an award-winning poet whose most recent book is Blaze, a collaboration with the painter Kesler Woodward. As writer in residence for the Arizona Commission on the Arts, she worked with prison inmates, gang members, teen parents and others. She currently teaches and lives in Fairbanks, Alaska. For information, see www.peggyshumaker.com.

LUSIA SLOMKOWSKA: Slomkowska's work has been published in a variety of American and European magazines and newspapers, including Fotographia, Icarus, New Letters, Parnassus, Quarterly West and The Tucson Weekly. She lives in Tucson.

DEAN STOVER: A GateWay Community College teacher of English and religious studies, Stover has lived in Phoenix since the 1960s and wrote Grand Canyon Poems, including "Morning in the Canyon," after a Colorado River trip.

LAURA TOHE: A Diné (Navajo) poet and assistant professor at Arizona State University, Tohe's Tséyi', Deep in the Rock: Reflections on Canyon de Chelly was listed as a 2005 Southwest Book of the Year. She grew up near the Chuska Mountains, attended boarding and public schools as a child and earned a B.A. in psychology and a Ph.D in English.

KYLE GRANT WILSON: Wilson is a Diné (Navajo) writer born and raised in Fort Defiance. He teaches writing at Arizona State University and has published in several journals, including Rattle and English Journal.

ARIZONA HIGHWAYS DECEMBER 2006 VOL. 82, NO. 12

Publisher WIN HOLDEN Editor PETER ALESHIRE Senior Editor BETH DEVENY Managing Editor RANDY SUMMERLIN Web/Research Editor SALLY BENFORD Book Division Editor BOB ALBANO Books Associate Editor EVELYN HOWELL Special Projects Editor JOBETH JAMISON Editorial Administrator NIKKI KIMBEL Editorial Assistant PAULY HELLER Director of Photography PETER ENSENBERGER Photography Editor RICHARD MAACK Art Director BARBARA GLYNN DENNEY Art Assistant DIANA BENZEL-RICE Map Designer KEVIN KIBSEY Production Director MICHAEL BIANCHI Promotions Art Director RONDA JOHNSON Webmaster VICKY SNOW

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ARIZONAHIGHWAYS.COM

ODE TO joy

Arizona's best poets and photographers reflect on the gifts of the land Landscape photographers are poets of light, which gave us an idea for this Christmas package for our readers. First, we asked the University of Arizona Poetry Center and the Creative Writing Program at Arizona State University to help us find the most vivid and creative poets in Arizona and to challenge them to capture the essence of our beloved state. Then Director of Photography Peter Ensenberger issued the same call to the best scenic photographers in the country, before matching words to images. Here is the result, shadows and light, words and yearning—our gift, our treasure.

Night Comes to the Desert

Like the sun growing dim on the far stone rim of the hill In the slight-chill stillness of the darkening Earth, The coming quiet thrill of coolness sung is the last song Sound of the birds, and surprising. The house finches, Grackles, the fast hummingbirds and slow pigeons, All of them who had been in flight all day, a full day, They finish the work of making the night into a nest Fixed and filled enough for what comes next,Their song, words long in the mouth of them, Ready enough for their life in the dark, their life In the half-hard hours that lie ahead, their nesting bed Slept-in with eyes open, led more by noise than light.

Theirs is a sleep so like ours in the city, the sleep of us, So many who are in their way these birds and this day.

A Sheep Dog Laments after a Navajo lullaby

“Náshdói yéé bikee' diniih.” The white wooly head chews empty air, Green cud. The still sheep dog's ears Are caught changing into moving Radar dishes left listening to the locusts Chanting the Enemy Way, in the half moon, To the harmonic corn pollen dusting the night.

"The Mountain Lion's paws hurt. Come help me, little sheep."

“Náshdói yéé bikee' diniih.” A lonely lamb finds the hurting Mountain Lion-yawning and crying on A boulder. A falling star becomes an epitaph. The sheep dog walks a few steps Into the blowing wind trying to find The lost lamb. Above, a star falls bright blue.

"The Mountain Lion's paws hurt. Come help me, little sheep."

“Náshdói yéé bikee' diniih.” The sheep dog howls deeply, emptily.

"The Mountain Lion's paws hurt. Come help me, little sheep."

Overhead, a jet shakes the hogan as my mom Wonders where the missing sheep have gone. She knows we have fine sheep dogs, three Rough mutts. At first light, we'll take the pick-up Over the sand dunes to the edge of the canyons To listen for a dog's howl. A shoe-game song Turned lullaby, my mom sings of a terrible cat Luring helpless lambs. My mom blows out The kerosene lamp, I smile to hear it again: "Náshdói yéé bikee' diniih."

Blind Contour: Night Sky

Tonight the heavens murmur their promise: bright and distant violence. And you've driven a switchback road out past jagged, small mountains that border west this small and jagged town where your heart's consecutive failures have been as carefully charted as the codex of stars folded in-out-in-out and tucked away in your breast pocket. Because tonight you hate yourself for being lonely, recline against hood and windshield, dark and parked

and gazing-because this is all you know. Because you misbelieve, because you mistake yourself for ancient: vision unveiled by saguaros yearning skyward-arms beckoning the gauzy ribbon of dust and stars as the stun and halo of headlights fade from your eyes' edges; though you're still left dark and wandering. Apogee begins to focus: Betelgeuse, Rigel arm and leg of Orion-his belt, those diamond seams. And you forget Why it is he stalks the skies. Draw your eyes back. See the night for all her breadth when coyotes wring the pale and petty arguments. And catch now, peripherally, a streaking light, an acute and failing angle earthward-all atmosphere and friction, a brilliant production. A meteor, you know, though seconds away from smoldering -ite. And because it may amount to nothinga quintessence of dust-cast that well-worn wish.

Five Lies About the Moon

1. The Full Daytime Moon She is a bald-headed woman. When someone shouts "Fire!" she rushes from the building without her wig. She becomes confused in the crowd and turns down the wrong street. We try not to look at her, pale and fragile as a lost button in search of a shirt.

2. The Waning Crescent Moon She is young and elegantly thin. She goes to many parties but does not dance, preferring to drape herself across a couch where she is always surrounded by men. Any of them would gladly place his neck beneath her delicate foot. She is in love, nobody knows with whom, and it is hopeless. When she smiles sadly, they are overcome. She goes home early and alone.

3. The Half-Moon She loved her husband. The day he left her for another woman, one side of her face became paralyzed. Now she turns that side away and faces the world bravely in profile. It is unfair that she, of all women, should have a Roman nose and a weak chin.

4. The Gibbous Moon She has lost both her money and her figure and is defenseless, wearing secondhand light. Still, she does the best she can to keep up appearances, and goes from place to place as she did in the past. Often when she arrives at the proper address, perspiring and late, nobody is home.

5. The Full Harvest Moon She wears gold carelessly, because it is expected, but she glows from within. Although she has pressing duties to perform, she moves through the crowd in the palace hall as if there were no hurry. The men gasp at her beauty and the women turn pale with chagrin. Without slowing her progress toward the door, she offers a sincere word and a special look to each of them.

We Wait

With the fingers of my left hand, I dig in the sand to follow the vanishing seep spring down. Among the rocks and the lizards, I come to drink. A bee moves over the rock beside me. Grey-winged butterflies light on the willow tree. Each day I follow the water table down through the sand, Each day going a little bit deeper. A curved bill thrasher and quail come to drink. In this canyon reaching towards the dark holes in space, We wait for the new water to well into our pool.

Coyote Knows

All water is Holy Water. Any Coyote can tell you that. He knows dark foaming arroyos and hidden tinajas, and he drinks from mirages when times are bad.

But holiest of waters, the sweetest on Coyote's tongue, the one true sacrament, the song, is scent of rain that stays forever cupped in slick rock crevices on mountainsides.

Put your tongue against that rock And you can taste Coyote's ancient thirst and ours.

Water equals life in the desert, as Gambel's quail and coyotes know. BOTH BY TOM VEZO. The grand, old, wise saguaro (opposite) may sip it slowly for hundreds of years. STEVE BRUNO

Arizona Satori

Why should the old man not feel young again when he stops to consult for fifty minutes or so the great saguaro standing tall—300 years of wisdom speaking with silence, sending no bill, keeping no illegible records, having no license at all on the wall?

River Run

"... you will know the loss of guile and that the journey has begun. Among the mesas and soft lavender hills, there is silence, birds circling in spirals of light and forgiveness."

Out there in the hills, juniper laces the land, a nickel moon shining, smell of sagebrush and dirt creeping into our bones.

There, the ice-edged night will begin to fall away, a cloudless sky bright with stars.

At dawn, we will enter water, begin to speak the names of river places: Crystal Rapid, Lava Falls, Havasu Creek.

There, an arbor of cottonwood and willow will gather in the distance, and small fish will breathe beneath our boat, flicker of gills, glisten of fins and oars-first run, the joy we bear.

NÍŁTSÁ BIKA'

Níltsá bika' Aadéé líí dilbilgo tl'éé' nahalingo bił ch'eldloozh bá háchigo naayéé'ee k'ebgo ts'ida deesk'aazgo áhoolaa tó vílaad đóó níyol tsoh áhoolaa Hashké níłtsá biką naazbaa' tl'éé' bíighah atah názhnoodabgo yiską áádóó líí bił anááldloozh anaa' yéę táá ákóógo 'ayiilaa

Male Rain

Male Rain He comes riding a dark horse angry malevolent cold bringing floods and heavy winds Warrior rain having a 49 night then rides away leaving his enemy behind

NÍŁTSĄ BIÁÁD

Níltsá biáád Sha'di'aabdéę'go dah naaldogo 'alzhish k'ós hazlii' honeezk'ází níltsá biáád bitázhool bijooltsá áádóó niltsą biáád biyázhí bídii'na' Naaniiniilkaahgo níltsá biáád biyázhí hazlíí' ch'íl látah bózhóón dahtoo'bee 'ałch'i' báazhab áádóó nihik'inizdidláád

Female Rain

Female Rain Dancing from the south cloudy cool and gray pregnant with rainchild At dawn she gives birth to a gentle mist flowers bow with wet sustenance luminescence all around

A Rancher's Daughter in Arizona

She was born close to Baboquivari, that sacred peak rising from the southern desert, lived on the ranch where Durham cattle and Arabian horses were raised.

The family's fortunes fell when the father was thrown from his horse spooked by a snake on the trail, hit his head on a rock, and couldn't manage hard work again.

There were Indians who worked on the ranch, too. They heard others call them "Papagos" but knew themselves by another name. They also were born close to that sacred peak.

A century later, the rancher's daughter says, "The Baboquivari was the only thing in this world I was jealous of when I found out it didn't belong to us." But she is content that she has known its long shadow.

Morning in the Canyon

The river is the first thing we look to even before ourselves and it is bloody from the land come to philosophize with it. There is no direction of survival.

Cliffs steal pink flames while blue lavender godly surrounds. The moment gives birth to a fog like a vein of lava.

I look to the river. All of this is me. The earth's patience has worn greatly.

Cradle

Just touching top leaves of the cottonwoods, light.

Creek dark flow beneath, a boldness of cold, of fresh, I stand near as it moves.

From up creek two plaintive hoots for the passing of darkness.

I want to stay still, still and let the Earth, let the Earth. I want to be pressed into, printed, imprinted by this sandbank cradling its waterbody, smell of mud and dry grass, light sifting down to lift us.

Always I want to come from here when I turn into word traffic on the media way, when I hold the mute weight of what the hurrying world runs over.

We're Visiting the Petrified Forest

As the park is closing so any time is better than none, though this is exactly how these woods were not created. The logs needed not only a long time but nearly perfect conditions for each wood fiber to be replaced by silica, to empty into stone.

What remains are reminders that what is taken continues to become. For it was water that brought the logs here and water that still washes what is ancient from this forest of repose.

As the logs lengthen into shadows as bark-colored as the trees once were, we know it's time to leave, but pause and wish we could return the forest to where it used to be, to see what no one else saw happen, for what happened, happened slowly over 225 million years ago.

Hidden Waters

Then one day, your horse's hooves Will carry you down around that bend, In the curves of the shifting arroyo sands, Where what you have waited for, for a lifetime, Will suddenly be there before you, To be seen and not seen only once or twice, In those flows of a lifetime, Every few hundred years. There, what you have waited for, Will appear in the shape of a tinaja, A beautiful clear pool, Where the mixing arroyo sands and the waters Have cut the deep pool downward, Ever deeper and deeper, Into the flows of the waiting rock. It is there, that you will drink In those waters that wait before you. So now, deer, mountain lions, coatimundis, javelina, Come drink here, by the shy lips of this pool Lips touching lips, you and I.

Pusch Ridge

The big-horned sheep in the Catalinas repeating their footholds from cliff to cliff have no days more angled nor sharper than the crevice, serpentine, between us. No screech of an owl, no talons prying us apart— the unrelenting blue sky building. In air so dry the solar heat hurts right through it, a spider's rope leads me to the trail crest where I do not leave a mark.

Waving

Gold dry grasses in the narrow canyon appear ruby tipped in the late sun. Framed against a small red boulder another small life in the wilderness grows quietly, unnoticed, gray of leaf. Raising its head to bloom, it makes an elegant flower, so small that smiles as it sways on slender stalk waving to the warm sun passing.

Sudden Hail

She's resting on the earth under a sundog's tattoo. It is December and the scrub grass switches-back on the hill.

Among a swerve of brittle bush and creosote a herd of wild mustangs lose their heads, a couple of maverick calves, their tails. Tumbleweed collects at the fence. As she concentrates on the way a lizard scuttles, her mind replays the light in her husband's eyes that morning, an understanding deepens she's been struck as much by their softness as by her only half-desiring to come to him sooner.

The wind and her heart stop for a moment on the trail. She brushes off the small white stones of sky.

Light

in a flash at the end of the day greasewood and palo verde give back the light they have hoarded then they go under drowning in shadows through which dozens of bats maneuver like tiny umbrellas opening and closing unexpectedly the desert has no burning bush no Jacob's ladder no pillar of smoke or fire but thousands of small things with shining eyes are searching for food in the dark

How to Amuse a Stone

command the stones in a loud voice or speak to them just to the left of silence or sing them a love song in Spanish they will not respond write a letter in it confess all your sins place it under a stone leave it there for months and when you return you will find your letter unopened and unread stones have a sense of dignity greater than that of kings a sense of honor stronger than that of friends stones are fulfilled like prophecy tendentious as rain and have a sense of humor more subtle than we can comprehend it takes a long time to amuse a stone first you must capture one carry it away imprison it with mortar in a wall the stone will not complain then you must wait and years after you are gone under another stone on which some stranger carved your name the mortar in your wall will crumble and the stone you captured will fall to the ground amused and free and going home

Driving Through Nature

Past the canyon's rosy gouge and spires, past the whack of copter blades and booked rooms, past ponderosa and piñon scrub, the shacks begin. Dirt lot, brush fence, nomad shelters built for shade. American flags snap on the scrapwood stalls where the Navajo sell rugs and beads, behind them, the planet's skin stretched out bare and raw so that it seems the land will tell its story to anyone— rifts and upheaval, wear and rest. I'm tired of trying to find a place where history hasn't left its scars and wounded. There is only one Earth and its laws are a mystery we're here to solve.

A Quiescence on the Prairie

(... as we gather our living...) Oh how the great old days alight, and the glasses clink along. Sonnets aspire. Promises are made ~ Summer (white) in all our bones, and in the long young night, our song.

Aspens glister in the pines like blondes. Completely still in the hour, a dozen nephews blaze in the glade ~ O love, our great old days alight, and the glasses clink along.

Oh literature! Strange fires surround us 'til the full butter moon falls down. Guitars on the grass are played ~ Summer (white) in all our bones, and in the long young night, our song.

A Kaibab quarrels with wrens for seed, another epithalamion. Teachers strike, skunk squawk and bite, the belles avant unfazed ~ The great old days do alight tonight, love, and the glasses clink along.

Brocatelle, tulle, and daffodil superscintillate on the lawn. Remember the sharp blown sand on the windows of brown Chevrolets? Summer (white) in all our bones, and in the long young night, our song.

No one rages in the lonely Colorado for long. The bow is knotted. The rent is paid. O Love, how the great old days alight like light and the glasses clink along. Summer (white) in all our bones, and in the long young night, our song.

Candlewood, spread with palm fronds-strong ramadas. new spines overnight.

Slimwood. Bare almost every month

except after rain when each pore

spurts green gloss and the tip

Of every arm in the desert

Explodes into salsa. Firecrackers.

Jacob's staff. Flaming sword.

Many-armed hope. Ocotillo.

The aspens fairly glow (left) in Saddle Mountain Wilderness of Kaibab National Forest. JERRY SIEVE To order a print of this photograph (left), see inside front cover.

An ocotillo spreads, green and red and hopeful (above left). ROBERT G. MCDONALD For miles and miles, one can see far, along the Mogollon Rim (above). JERRY SIEVE To order a print of this photograph (above), see inside front cover.

U.S. 260: The Mogollon Rim

Alone an elk is all hooves and antlers; one elk moves in whispers. But together form muscle-the sinew bark of a cedar that somehow spines horizontally.

From a dense fog the elk river through the juniper like fish on a line. In the pitch darkness they find each other and emerge like breath from within.

And like the river, they marry and separate-shadowdance from concept to flesh With potential to be an ocean with places to go-inching at the surface of a large.

Once connected to the moon, dawn crawls over the horizon, An explosion of breath from nostrils becomes visible-a heartbeat's exhale.

The half-light storms in with the silence of elk in sixty numbers. In unison they slip across the narrow paved road, unheard.

It is a quiet rhythm; it could be the midnight for all I know I could be deaf for all I know; all I am sure of is what I seeHorses with clipped wings, silenced by the distance between them and me. Horses that rest in a bed of pine with needles that cup the belly while they sleep.

Legs arch, toes tip the paved road like volcanic ash Each one needles by; each has a task to stitch one side of the trees to the other The elk-ened night is the fabric that ties the treelines Split by a slender paved road between that goes places for miles.