To the Sonora
If you were human, you’d be a brutal soul.
You claw at my skin and the sky.
Your dust clogs my pores.
Your sun is a shot to my head.
Even so, when you woo me,
I am smitten with peppery sage aroma,
lavender, acacia, jasmine bouquet
rivaling Parisian perfume.
Dune-breasted lady,
moods hot and cold as the sea you once were,
to wed you would prove deadly.
Recalling the hundreds of wooden crosses
hung with rosaries, flags, scraps of cloth
marking where migrants perished,*
I soak up your scenery
through the window of our chilled car
and carry gallons of water.
Sonora, your distant sierras
transfix me as do Alberta’s Rockies.
I’m dazzled by your cotton fields
evoking Quebec snowdrifts.
As much as I like Lake Ontario,
I love man-made Lake Pleasant, formed
behind the world’s largest multi-arch dam.
When I return to Canada
Sonora, I burn and thirst for you.
Author: Donna Langevin
Photo: Orlando Garcia on Unsplash
*Memorial crosses by artist Alvaro Enciso.
First published in "Ode to Arizona" (2024) by Donna Langevin
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