The pancake clouds
Hover over the mountaintops
As sheep-wool herds of fluff
Float hungrily nearby.
The sky is lazy over Arizona-brown
Winter-desert earth.

Christmas’s ‘faux’ electric-colors
Have been left behind
In the oasis called Tucson.
The hustle and hullabaloo
Of big-city-holiday-shopping-frenzy
Still echoes from the rear of the Tahoe
With the vibrations of crackling bags,
Shifting loadings and Styrofoam rubbings,
Along with gleeful children’s voices.

The popcorn fleece of sheep
Have disappeared into nether regions,
As a storm front disperses
Their form of life force.
The sky was lazy
Over home-bound desert earth,
Now it searches with cloud-fingers
Of substance, and Christmas-worth.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 12/18/05