Black is … and a poem

Here is a poem from Black.  It was first published in Blue Hole in 2012.

The People Who Live Here

Some people want this desert land:
the low mesquite, yellowed grass,
cottonwood, yucca, prickly pear.
They live in the tin-roofed houses, trailers,
drive the tractors with dust
pouring up and around them,
wave at our train.
Some wait bitter for the school bus,
plan lives in faraway Tempe, Phoenix,
but beside them stand cousins
who gaze out over the rangeland
to hills dotted with juniper
and taste that long look.
These are people who want
the way cloud shadows move over the scrub.
They want the rain stinks
of mud and sagebrush and cows.
They do not mind the dusts
or the glitter in the air.
They stand beside the dry sand of the river
and feel something moving under it.