Beyond Me

On foot in the desert, approaching the mountains, I step around greasewood and mesquite, saguaro and paloverde. On the hillside I barely notice the cholla, the prickly pear, the scattering of stones: smooth, gray, the size of a hand, until the stones explode suddenly about me, beating up into squeaking, white-tailed flight. Slowly my heart returns to normal. For a while I follow. Hours later, as I lie tired but sleepless in darkness, I think of them, see the doves settling again into stones beyond me.