On Revisiting Arizona after 12 Years

ON REVISITING

dogs walking kids to school in the morning

ARIZONA

and the odor of creosote bushes after a thunderstorm

AFTER

and backyards without fences

TWELVE

and how cold the tap water is in the mountains

YEARS

and rivers and trains

and the silence of the Grand Canyon

and the way the low light ignites the hills around Lake Powell...

Graveyards by the sides of churches and what it feels like to cool our feet in a mountain stream

and Jerome

and front porches

and frost in the morning

and how close the stars are...

Mariposa lilies

and country roads

and the joy of reading aloud in the car with the windshield wipers going

and dogs without leashes

and gravel driveways And how fast people who live in small towns can spot people who don't

and the way lavender-blue lupines line the highway and the noise the wind makes when it whistles through juniper trees...

What it's like to have the road all to ourselves in the morning

The layered pogodas along Bright Angel Trail

and golden poppies climbing up a hill

and mountain roads that are canopied with trees

and what it smells like when it rains in the desert...

and hard handshakes and how much people who work out-of-doors eat for breakfast...

What the word “weather-beaten” really means

and the sycamore-lined washes of Oak Creek Canyon

and bats in the evening

and train whistles at night

and the birds in Madera Canyon

and houses with thick walls

and the stillness of Monument Valley...

The way the dawn comes up like thunder at the South Rim and the smell of wood-burning stoves in the morning and how the Apache Trail hugs the Salt River south of Roosevelt Dam and Mount Lemmon and how quiet it is when it snows in the forest...

And the blueness of the sky

and the clearness of the air

and the softness of the evening and the innocence of the morning...

And how lucky we are.