Poems by Ruth Mota

In Juanita's Garden

by Ruth Mota

From Canary Winter 2022-23

Ruth Mota lives in a redwood, tanoak and madrone forest in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Her morning walk passes an Ohlone kitchen at the summit of the trail. At winter solstice a shaft of sunlight falls directly onto the central grinding stone.

How many more springs will unfold like this?
Daffodils explode to golden stars.
in the planter, beets lift scarlet arms and
chorus lines of lettuce unfurl their skirts.
I watch untamed oxalis flail before the prim narcissus
and a chickadee wing up diamonds in her bath.
A scrub jay eyes me from an apple branch
before his brazen dive to steal an almond from my palm.
But I can’t see a bee, and it isn’t really spring.
February breaks in beauty but the breeze portends.
From the coast below, frothy tongues lick up our shore.
From the hills beyond, tanoak moans against madrone.
What news is penned by dark wings rising from the east -
specks that gyrate, barely visible against the sun?

Published by Fourth River Literary Journal 2021.