Cibola Poem by Susan Marie Watkins

Cibola

The California sun
Streams from above
Beatifying us
In that old black & white snap

She reckless & rash
I timid,
Guarded
But full of yearning
Sucked into the middle
Of her every cyclone
Into her swift, swirling life

In our homemade cotton shifts
The immortal sun
Lay tender on our skins,
And the unexplored world
Spread glittering before us,
A city of gold

But then she was gone,
Never in my arms again

And now that city,
Long abandoned,
Lies in ruins
The winds of change
Savaging its battered windows
& Broken doors