Early Santa Ana

by Heidi Morrell

This night the atmospheric caveats
come in gently like Chopin;
a dry breeze lifts hairs
rustling them like tiny leaves.

Santa Ana bathes the skin
with its aerial wash through the canyons,
canyon tongues that spit their gusts
into the huge Angeles basin,
a basin no longer wild with
arching ferns and alluvial fans,
mugwort and lily, tides and spring floods.

But the wind is still here,
stroking or maddening
with its heaves, sighs or curt salutes,
speaking in sepia tones
thrown into the sky.