Today’s poem is especially for my family back in Arizona. The saguaro is not a tree; it’s a cactus. But we’re reading James Wright for his poetry skills, not his plant taxonomy skills. For context: bear in mind while reading this piece that shadows, anything that gives shade, are an especially big deal in a desert.
Enjoy.
Ellen
To the Saguaro Cactus Tree in the Desert Rain
I had no idea the elf owl
Crept into you in the secret
Of night.
I have torn myself out of many bitter places
In America, that seemed
Tall and green-rooted in mid-noon.
I wish I were the spare shadow
Of the roadrunner, I wish I were
The honest lover of the diamondback
And the tear the tarantula weeps.
I had no idea you were so tall
And blond in moonlight.
I got thirsty in the factories,
And I hated the brutal dry suns there,
So I quit.
You were the shadow
Of a hallway
In me.
I have never gone through that door,
But the elf owl’s face
Is inside me.
Saguaro,
You are not one of the gods.
Your green arms lower and gather me.
I am an elf owl’s shadow, a secret
Member of your family.
■
I had no idea the elf owl
Crept into you in the secret
Of night.
I have torn myself out of many bitter places
In America, that seemed
Tall and green-rooted in mid-noon.
I wish I were the spare shadow
Of the roadrunner, I wish I were
The honest lover of the diamondback
And the tear the tarantula weeps.
I had no idea you were so tall
And blond in moonlight.
I got thirsty in the factories,
And I hated the brutal dry suns there,
So I quit.
You were the shadow
Of a hallway
In me.
I have never gone through that door,
But the elf owl’s face
Is inside me.
Saguaro,
You are not one of the gods.
Your green arms lower and gather me.
I am an elf owl’s shadow, a secret
Member of your family.
■