June in Payson, Arizona

Juniper berries pepper the ground,
where Apache women sit on quilts
and sheets to collect them

Cotton and sage fill the breeze
that tussles nearby wind-chimes
and sparrows in flight

Clouds shuffle atop the Mogollon Rim,
shifting sunlight over the hills,
turning dusk to night

Locusts buzz an electric pulse,
in time with the telephone wires,
that connect desert housewives

High as the saguaros, with woodpeckers
drilling their spiny branches, that offer
burning red blossoms in their palm

Elysha Hummer-Gellerman