I am tall and straight, arms spanning a horizon
like Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man of Proportions, in the sun
with one thousand black osprey perched atop saguaros
along the rough seaside track from Bahia de Kino
north to that little Seri Indian village at Desemboque
near Isla Tiburon, every bird facing northwest to catch
mid-morning sun on their primary feathers outstretched,
the last drops of night’s cold rising off their backs
into the sere desert air, vanishing into the hard light.
I stand naked, Renaissance Man exposed to the hot wind,
sun-baked all to one tone like the earth’s tough skin
beneath the ocotillo, ironwood and palo verde,
the color of the belly of the Indian girl heavy with child
who sits upon the driftwood log and mends the nets,
strand by strand, with a patience that is natural
in such places where sea and sun and sky are all.
I perch in the sun like the fish hawk, I stand tall
as a cactus, I sit like the girl and face the sea.
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