DRY CRIK Journal

We have become the home
of quail, some years hundreds
come for water and the cover

of our presence – coveys of babies
herded alertly between adult
top-notches nodding, scolding

from poison oak to prickly pear
beside the trough’s puddled leak
I’ll fix someday – in the summer

usurping the driveway like picketers
milling progress to a standstill. Not
far off Cooper’s Hawk & Red Tail

watch, Bobcat upon a boulder.
So many sentries, so many eyes –
each twittering report repeated

in plump chatting movement: the long
run to fly, or quick explosion of blurred
birds – the thunderous whirring of short

wings, gray shards coasting all directions.
Rock piles calling, Over Here, Over here –
until the edge of evening closes in.