Solstice

All of it cyclical,
Expansion, recession,
Biorhythms,
The wobbling of a spinning globe
Towards the sun
Then away from it

I lay awake in another long night
But I know that for the next
Six months
These nights, at least,
Get shorter

Santa Ana

Three thirty in the morning
And it's unseasonably warm
Beneath a sprawling fig tree
Its branches barren against the silver light;
The warm air moves,
Taking the last of the dry, yellow leaves
Pulling them from the now dormant limbs,
They fall to the ground, these little lonely hands
That once opened to the sky seeking warmth and sunlight
And now, cast away, they go where all things go when they die,
To be torn apart and used to feed other things:
The other lives that still go on