Arizona Photographer

Prompt: Write a poem or story about bird watching, a saguaro cacti, and a small green lizard.


Where Sonoran desert slopes dip
into rocky-rust bajada,
a flock of gray-plumed quail
roost silent in honey mesquite.

Hidden, I capture their
softly sand-streaked russet roundness.

The Saguaro cacti flower’s evening bloom
is peach-and-cream; a heady, nectared heart
attracting insect, bat and bird.

I click against this sky of colors yet unnamed.

Bee and blossom kiss
to pollinate the relished, pulpy flesh of fruit.

A black-collared olive lizard
showing youth’s crossbandings bright,
crouches basking on a boulder
just over my sunburned shoulder.

I laugh, and the dense bosque of mesquite
comes sudden alive with quivering quail.