Up On Otay

Some days I can feel the cougar stalking,

almost hear its furtive breathing close,

four paws soft as air on this trail of dirt

and rock high upon Otay Mountain.

Below me a blue lake shimmers,

the great sea beyond forever glimmers,

yet squinting, I can barely see it.

Suddenly a pair of crows squawk
rude demands overhead, their raucous

calls awaken the animal in me

while Santa Ana winds off the desert
blow steady and hot, clarifying boulder,
bird, bush, what’s above, down beneath.

Thoughts sharpen and glimmer like tendrils

of gold hair in currents of thin air.

The torrid breeze on my face purifies and dries

throat and eyes, makes a single blade of grass

stand out against an astonishing sky of blue.

Everything is vivid, easily in reach,
I can see each leaf of the wispy

Tecate cypress across the southern ridge

and a lone truck shrouded by trees,

a four-wheeled mystery somehow landed
upright down in the steep canyon's bottom.

The rustle and sigh of oak leaves afloat,
their flutter calms in this raging heat --

everything appears clear, except whether Otay’s cat

hearing boots scuff on the stony road will strike
with her powerful claws, her awful greed,
those razor teeth that can plunge like a savage
goddess into a man’s muscle, tear flesh
and tendon from bone.