Hertz - City Map of Phoenix

Every year I fly to Arizona as winter wanes. I travel here for a variety of reasons: 1) for an annual medical conference 2) to briefly leave behind bare trees, cold weather and snow 3) to spend time with my sister who happens to live in Phoenix, the best reason of all.

The dates of the conference vary. Sometimes it's held in February, other years in March. As you will see, I dusted off a poem I wrote about a previous journey to this area. The details may change but the sentiments remain the same.



Hertz - City Map of Phoenix


In the frostbite of February
you guide me in the Valley of the Sun
to red rock boulders scattered
like flashy dice across the flat
desert table, past anterooms filled
with rakish prickly-pears.

Take me down alleys of dusty adobe
to Southwest-woven fairs, fry bread dancing
on hot skillets, Navajo thunder rumbling
from hide-stretched drums. Later, point me
to Mariachi music and margaritas under the stars.

This year: directions to an open air
Chihuly exhibit, hand blown glass rising
between the saguaro. Upstart cacti
in poppy red and bluebell and buttercup
revel in the shallows of the Sonora.

But always at the bottom of the map
a fat green line intersects the airport,
waiting.



Marilyn Aschoff Mellor