I wake and take your picture from my night table
With a kiss, I place it on the shelf
Give you my mornin’ prayer
It’s a weakness I allow myself
In the kitchen, I make the coffee
As the sun’s first light through the window streams
I wake your brother Roberto from his dreams
I throw my tools in the truck bed
From the San Fernando into the hills
As the gray morning clouds
Over the hilltop stream
I follow them down
Into the cool rich canyons of grain
And my mind drifts to you
From the northern mountains
The water comes and the city blooms
The Santa Anna’s breathe so dry and dusty
Through the villa rooms
Bougainvillea blossom
Red and white ’round the entry door
And the roses rise so perfectly out of the desert floor
Your memory is my desire
My daughter, if my sorrow is my sin
With my work here in this garden, we’ll both live again
I trim the eucalyptus
That her branches may be free, my love
That the wind may find a way
Through to the dark sky above
That day your mother
On the porch waiting
Now I watch the branches drifting
And my heart fills with you
At night I feel your spirit
As the day’s weariness I embrace
I visit you in the brave beauty of your mother’s sleeping face
Now, Ramona, when the dark comes drifting in
And these rooms lie sweetened by the dry desert wind
Tell me how
How will my heart ever mend
If I can never touch you or feel you breathe again
In my dreams, the earth to which I have given you
Opens below me where I stand
I slip beneath the moist soil
Through the cool dust and desert sand
I hold your face
I hold your face in my hands
I wake early in the morning
Today, I’ll cut the roses from their stems