SUNRISE

The lean coyote, prowler of the night,

Slips to his rocky fastnesses.

. Jack-rabbits noiselessly shuttle among the sage-brush,

And, from the castellated cliffs, 

 Rock-ravens launch their proud black sails upon the day.

            IThe wild horses troop back to their pastures.

            The poplar-trees watch beside the irrigation-ditches.

            Orioles, whose nests sway in the cotton-wood trees by the ditch-side, begin to twitter.

All shy things, breathless, watch

The thin white skirts of dawn,

The dancer of the sky,

Who trips daintily down the mountain-side

Emptying her crystal chalice. . . .

And a red-bird, dipped in sunrise, cracks from a poplar's top

 !lis exultant whip above a silver world.

(From "The Poet in the Desert")