Some Other Time

At 6:12 in Tennessee

the sun's up high enough

already that it's lost its

red-ball glow but not

so high it's lost

its there's-a-whole-day-ahead

look. At this hour in Santa Fe

it's 5:12. There's still

a milky-blue in the air where

a red-ball glow will soon be

and still the yip-yip

of a coyote here and there,

the nearly silent swishing

that rattlesnakes make

wending their way home over

dry red clay. There're

not that many rattlesnakes

in Tennessee, but suns with

as much red-ball glow

as the ones out in New Mexico.

They just get up earlier,

that's all.