A Late February Arizona Sunset
By Don Iannone

A lone Harris hawk swoops and swoons
between shallow furrows cut
in the saguaro-carpeted mountains
just before Friday sunset.
Something about the tan bouldered rocks,
the endless azure sky, marbled
with slow drifting gray-white clouds,
and the slight glint of the near setting sun
on the hawk's out-stretched wings,
makes your heart long, and long deeply,
to be forever a part of this moment--
so close to turning orange and salmon-pink
before making room for the Arizona night sky.

February Sunset Concert
By Don Iannone

A slowly disappearing evening sun
paints Confederate gray clouds
with subtle streaks of marbled salmon-pink,
while melting snow drips
in classic three/four time.
Consciously, I am here--
soaking up Ma Nature's classic February concert,
but a part of me lingers,
just long enough to remember
an early evening spent gazing
at an Arizona sunset--
one not remarkably different than this winter eve;
just two thousand miles away, and
forty degrees warmer.

Finding Poetry on a Bitter Cold February Day
By Don Iannone

Bitter cold February wind
bites hard at my near numb cheeks
with its tiny razor-sharp teeth,
as I crunch down the driveway
to dig loose the now meaningless morning paper
from the crusty deep-drifted snow.
Fluffed up morning doves huddle
and peck slow motion
for half-buried seed under the icicled feeder.
Angry winds gather and howl
through the skeleton-like tree limbs.
Lonely songs they sing
about broken unfulfilled dreams
from somewhere long ago.
At twenty below, even the piercing bright sun
fails to permeate the artic air
that hovers thick like death.
For an instant, my mind warms
at the fleeting thought of spring
and fresh-born wildflowers.
But that too is snatched away
by the stinging wind,
that pours bitterness
on misplaced stillborn tears.
Trudging back to the house,
I resolve to build an even larger fire,
and sit in quiet reflection,
until a poem comes to me.
I feel one beginning to thaw.