Our passenger disclaims our landscape, “bare.”
Bemused, the desert quiets down her cast
Of subtle color, withholds her perfumed air.
She shades her jewels from eyes that do not ask.
To me, her forms are home; are psalms of grace.
I’ve felt her tantrum storms, seen August’s blight,
Known spring’s and winter’s pauses, shared her face
As dawn prepared a morning bath of light.
I’ve climbed her painted cliffs, borne sun’s last arc
’Til moon the curfew called. And made a bed
To watch the stars burst over her, and marked
The wind: from breeze to gust to breeze, then dead.
Though fortune’s turn has borne me from her land,
I’m quick to own my veins are filled with sand.
