Pink Moment

Bierstadt clouds light up over the Sangres.
I see it in a minute of arc 
as the glass door swings
and a rush rises in the cottonwoods.

Now the day's last air is colored and dancing
and I am in it and running 
thrilled and running
past fenced horses crashing 
past blackbirds laughing

to my high place in the badlands 
where I am all of them
and the fiery thunderhead fans out
big as Kansas,
red tide over Black Mesa.

There, I remember the postcard 
from Ted's girl in Ojai 
-- crimson face of Topa Topa, 
pale moon rising --
captioned The Pink Moment.

It was with a Leonard Cohen disc
for my birthday.
My favorite, she wrote, 
is I'm Your Man; 
I think it's 
So Sexy.

So I returned a double entendre 
that she could unfold in her lap
and read in a minute
before the day's door closed
before the blush bled away
before shadow filled the garden.
 

                                       August 1999