The desert is not an empty husk,

barren with life clinging to its last breath

on cold stone and sliding desert sand.

Press an ear to the ground and feel the hum of music.

Is it so impossible to come eye-to-eye with a cacti and

see its spines as arms reaching to the sky?

 

A sleeping giant,

 pace along her back and the bridge of her nose.

The sun beats out rhythms on her stomach

while life spreads along her shoulders.

Plateaus serve as the perches of her eyes.

Stare out across the most fertile wasteland known to man.

 

Walk for a few hours,

let the desert have her way.

Walk barefoot, walk with hair tied up so the wind can tease the throat

 and eyes lifted to the majesty of a sun burnt sky.

Raise hands in penitence for all the wrong in the world,

out of control but still prevalent in the mind.

Taste the dust and relish the heat or risk missing the perfect

storm of desert magic.

 

Night comes,

and the desert rises and paces along her own skin,

crawls on her own forehead and lips.

Her step brings the sudden sunset and darkness,

she spreads the stars in her wake,

a collar of comet tails clinging to her neck like teardrops

or dew on grass that doesn't grow in her soil.

Rain is in her step and thunder in her voice,

racing to reach the choked life on her skin,

twice as tough as soft valley creatures.

 

She walks and gives her

touch of desert

like a sigh on backs of necks or temples

or a kiss on the cheek late at night,

and then she sweeps her long red robes around her sandy face

and moves toward

a slow sunrise.