DOUG STONE

SPRING/SUMMER 2021 ISSUE #02 POET

DOUG STONE lives amid hop yards and vineyards near the Willamette River in Western Oregon. He has written three collections of poetry, The Season of Distress and Clarity, The Moon’s Soul Shimmering on the Water, and Sitting in Powell’s Watching Burnside Dissolve in Rain.

ON THE SONORAN DESERT

The desert glows with last moments of sun

until the dying light wanders off to the west, 

softening saguaros to silhouettes against 

the fast fading, blue-black sky.

As night rises out of the earth,

its blindness rubs away all things certain. 

You too, become blind. Your hand 

reaches like a flower desperate for light. 

Without the privilege of sight, 

your fingers touch warm rocks 

and read the story of this place, 

feel the beginning, that ancient pulse: 

the earth’s heart, alive in the stone,  

beating with the same rhythm as your own.