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Organ pipe cactus in desert at sunset

One Poem by
Andrew Alexander Mobbs

Organ Pipe

We creep towards the vacant
campsite in a dust-streaked Ford
pickup and park, stunned by the Sonora
bursting open before us like
some sepia dream, and we are ready
to relinquish everything for this
whiff of creosote, ocotillo
branches splayed snakelike towards
altocumulus clouds clustering
in a sky so perfectly powder blue
it makes me feel a little selfish
to behold, but I do, and did I
mention it’s early February, sixty-
seven degrees, nothing but
heaven and a cast of hawks above
these Little Ajo Mountains, nothing
but gnarled junipers, stones
bleached through the epochs,
trails zigzagging up ridges and
summits from which you’re prone
to be dumbstruck by the lambent
horizon stretching south to Mexico
as sweat drips down your neck
onto your faded black t-shirt,
as you suspend your ascent
to remember in relief that the sky
is borderless and the sun is bright,
and today, I am one whole sun
with just enough light for us
to make it back to camp, where we
are tempted to laze in foldable chairs
with junk food piled in our laps but
no, not that, how could we resign to that
with scores of magnificent cacti
towering around, some forty feet
high, prickled, spined, and splendid
enough to graze the stratosphere,
the saguaro, pincushion, cholla
blooming fuchsia and goldenrod,
and let us not forget the monumental
namesake, its branches extending
skyward not in supplication
but in a bond of mutual understanding
with its arid surroundings,
a bond beyond the grasp of those of us
who can only experience
the magic of photosynthesis at a
theoretical distance, but this
is no sixth grade science classroom
with desert dioramas and water
cycle posters, no, this place calls
forth nothing but wind and grain,
scorpion and snake, the will
of each and every beloved plant
to breathe life straight from the stars

 

 

    

Andrew Alexander MobbsAndrew Alexander Mobbs is the author of the chapbook Strangers and Pilgrims (Six Gallery Press, 2013). A Pushcart Prize nominee, his poems have appeared in Frontier Poetry, Arkansas Review, Southwestern American Literature, Ghost Ocean Magazine, and elsewhere. He’s a co-founding editor of Nude Bruce Review.

Header photo of organ pipe cactus by LHBLLC, courtesy Shutterstock. Photo of Andrew Alexander Mobbs by Natalie Eleanor Patterson.

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