hovering over the trail
signals summer’s end.
When baby lizards
soak up the warm
late September sun.
Sights and scents
that fill my senses
ever since I was six
climbing up the tawny
flanks of whatever hill
hill is local to my feet.
The green sticky leaves
of the monkey flowers
have withered to a dull
version of orange
that tempts no battling
hummingbirds nor I.
And the poison oak
has changed like
a stoplight from
April’s deceptive green
to late September’s
menacing red. I was
warned when I was
five and our house
perched on a hillside
beside a poison oak
choked ravine and
a neighbor said
that the man who
rented thee house
before us had cut
the blister-inducing
vine and set a bonfire
which filled his lungs
with caustic smoke
from which he nearly
died. Smooth-edged
leaves in clusters
of three, the colors
can change from
green to red or white
sometimes a bush
sometimes a vine.
Don’t stick you hand
into a place if you don’t
recognize the plants
trying to grab bluebelly
lizards. They’re easier
to catch on the rocks.
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