Poem: On the Grapevine Hills Trail

In April 2006, I paused during my hike of the Grapevine Hills Trail at Big Bend and scribbled down this poem.

On the Grapevine Hills Trail

A still brown lizard waits on a boulder
in the shade of morning
for the sun to warm him.

Songbirds twitter and answer each other
while an occasional buzzing insect
flies by on a busy errand.

The russet stones, weathered and rounded,
perch like sentries
over and around the valley.

The prickly pear, grey sage, and leggy chollo
cling lovingly for life
on the slopes among the balancing rocks.

Tufts of straw-like grasses
and scraggly shrubs
join them on the landscape.

Sotols raise their singular arms
like periscopes for a look around
a land which was once seabed.

The ocotillos’ sprawling, thorny boughs
blaze with red-orange blossom tips
like a dozen burning bushes in the desert.

At the head of the trail, around a massive stack of stones,
springs a mountain vista in the distance,
the famous Casa Grande.

If the meaning of desert is “barren wasteland void of life”
then this is really no desert;
it’s just an alternative symbiotic balance — another way of being.

–Angela Loeb; © 2006

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Angela Loeb digs writing poetry… and she also helps people rediscover and use their gifts so they bring who they are to what they do in life. angelaloeb.com

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