empty

 

Do you remember what the desert whispered

at the light of dawn?  That it too craves a warm body.

Something more comforting than the brittle arms

of the mountains.  Cold and lonely, yet a man is not

a desert.  Still I too have known the silence of the

baked dry hardpan soil. 

The loneliness of the stars.

The sorrow of the road which goes on forever.

But mostly I have known the confusion that rests

Between the two.

What can the desert say to me that I do not already know?

There are things in the desert that can survive many years

Without even a hint of rain.  They wait, dormant and dry,

An almost existence. Hovering between death and dying.

Man is not a desert yet I crave the flood she brings.

The instant of release. Great thunderclouds beating upon me,

And if I were the desert I would gladly be washed away, grain

By grain. Just to be reborn in the storm carried in her careful grasp.