They scatter across the plain like news spreading
edge the far, high ridges
sentinels flaunting yellow against cloudless blue sky
yellow beside red-brown cows grazing
yellow hover above tough, bleached weeds
that crawled and claimed these dry hills
long before staunch umbrellas stood contented
They spill down steep gullies
furrowed as a bulldog’s brow
outline how the land laps back against itself
in great soft folds of earth-flesh,
gather in small clutches
or stand, stunned, alone
each one solitary
yet communal,
they cue up along the roads
loiter at intersections
pose straight on for all the cameras,
goldenrod silk ripples with the wind
shimmers in the desert sun
drapes the ground with shadows
of loose grace
like cast-off clothing
The close ones loom over us
arc bright arms in welcome
we sit and lie in the shelter
of familiar shapes made stately
we, too, feel enlarged
by their brief reign
surrounded
with the float of silent song
the joyous sheen
of lunacies benign
“Christo’s Yellow Umbrellas” was published in the anthology A Sense of Place, Saturday Afternoon Press, Los Angeles, 1993.
