Rick Leddy

Desert Song

They sing a disappointed September tune

Wail for the forgotten lyrics of changing colors and falling temperatures

But Los Angeles is Stravinsky

It is screeching violins of leaves spontaneously combusting

An unpopular cacophony of shimmering fall sidewalks and weary burned soles

They demand a soaring swan song

Not paved mirages filling them with confusion and despair

They want an aria for change

A sad, slow dirge recalling the loss of warmth and growth 

A requiem for Spring and Summer

But, we give them angry rap, a hot staccato ode to blistering autumns

A sneer in the direction of over the river and through the woods

They want the snap of chill and warm sweaters and the first smell of coming ice

But, we offer them the shaman’s rattle, burning sage and incomprehensible incantations 

We force the purification of wildfire and black, skeletal trees upon them

Even we practice amnesia of the desert lyrics

Hypnotized by the dissonance of blurred seasons 

We forget we are only visitors 

That the siren song beckons us to our destruction

The others banshee why?

These denizens of seasonal climes

And they are met with a shrug

It is how it is

How can you understand?

We surrender to inevitability

Wait for the earth to fall far enough from the sun to mute the desert song 

We wait for the last-ditch devil winds to crescendo through the hard-scrabbled canyons

And sometimes the chorus whispers we are scraping by on the dreams of others

We are singing a song learned by rote; its true meaning long forgotten

The lyrics of dust and bones slow and eternal

The desert waiting