Palm Desert

I’m looking over a golf course in Palm Desert,
the sprinklers have quit, the sun is up, the mowers are out,

as are the dog walkers,
and there is no war here,

and the queen palms and date palms
lean over the asphalt paths like young toughs,

but there is no inner-city here, no ghetto, not that kind,
only a mallard that has 40 acres of lawn to itself,

and last night I dreamt of angels,
not the guardians of cities, with swords aflame,

but of gardens, a thrush on a branch,
a hummingbird in a land of begonias,

and the hummingbird said,
the apocalypse is not the end,

but an integer of hope, and when I awoke,
an unwarranted calmness overcame me

and I read a morning psalm
which seemed to be saying,

the acknowledgement of fear, the owning of doubt,

is already a kind of peace,
and in that cock-crow space,

I could imagine a kind of cleansing
from the victories of my ego, the ashes of selfishness,

and when I turned to look out
I saw the darkness melt

saw life, brilliantly crawling out of the sea,
saw the world turn itself inside out,

and though I came late,
I joined the mushrooming throngs insisting on peace,

such peace, as is here in the desert,
a Mediterranean gecko, motionless, under the awning,
in the absolution of dawn.