A little love letter to Cascabel

   Secret cliffs stand silent in dry canyons.

   The sun stretches from horizon to horizon.

   Every rock is hot.

   Still, some places keep their names close,

   and hide plants there that love shade.

   In the mornings, mountains wake up first.

   Like cats they are alert watchers.

   The plants mostly endure.

   Contained for years they wait 

   for exhibitions of dazzling excess.

   Ants build fantastic homes in the worst soil.

   Beetles multiply even in dusty pastures.

   Snakes thrive.

   At night the toads suddenly bend the darkness

   with their wretched love songs.

   And the people? They too endure,

   holding something rare away from the wind,

   keeping watch—

   and like the bees, gather the slightest slips of sweetness

   into a golden labor of honey.