The Attendants

Night in the ghost courtyard, glittering
With stars, meteors, and all the small
Vampire lights set in the velvet dark,

Large bats spinning and diving for
Evasive, nearly inaudible moths, the trees
Exhaling overhead in canyon winds

And no doubt doing business among
Their enormous mycorrhizal networks
Never sleeping in the dirt. Somewhere,

Not far south of here, the next haboob
May be gathering in more open desert,
But we are sheltered in these cliffs,

Sheltered and entangled living things
And strange attendants, phosphorescent.