Robert Claus
The Joshua Trees Dance at Night
East of Babylon, the Joshua trees dance at night.
High above scrub-peppered lake beds and ramshackle trailers,
above the defiant geometry of wind-battered homesteads,
they gather solemnly in the cold desert night, goaded by the moon
and lit by pinholes in a weightless, rusty sky.
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Only the desert’s secret congregation of bobcats and owls,
of lizards and spiders, of rabbits and scorpions
bear witness to these secret rites.
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At dawn, the sun swaps the deficient dome for a pale blue lid
to cover the desert, so the emptiness won’t spill.
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Come day, coyote pad smirking through the scrub and
crows caw holes into the silence and the Joshua Trees
stand very still, sometimes shaking hands with a passing breeze.
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Before sunset, itinerant tourists capture the Pious
with rude glass eyes and rob them of their depth.
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But at night, at night the Joshua Trees again
silently propitiate the rootless sky; they dance,
they dance to the rustling desert wind that whistles softly
through the scrub, caressing snakes and sleeping buds,
and slipping over nameless boulders that forgot to die
in ages past (lightning to ashes, boulders to dust),
meanders through the reverent gloom towards
some unseen estuary, where all winds flow.
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At noon, the sun screams heat into the plain that suffocates
beneath the waves of squirming air, helpless in the searing noise.
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The roaring tyrant suffers none to move, the world lies silent,
lining the playas with time, waiting for dusk, waiting
for the night’s cool silence, when the tyrant tires
and falls beneath the world.
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At night, the Joshua Trees rise up and raise their bristling arms
in supplication to their unknown gods, whose grateful smiles
are hidden by the perforated sky.
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What gifts have they for spiky leaves and twisted, thirsty trunks?
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"Wisdom,"
