A lost and thirsty wanderer
          sought oasis on a parched and dusty plain
                   where spectral mesas
                merged with pastel stratus clouds -
            quivering in the summer sun.

                    A slender blue ellipse emerged
                            along the horizon's edge,
                          taunting the traveler’s arid throat.

                    Recalling child-day afternoons.
                         splashing in the pond behind the barn,
                              his legs urged toward aquatic deliverance.

                                       But knowledge seized his boots.
                                   Wary of loving a delusion,
                               he chose instead to seek a road or farm
                           or chance upon a horse-backed rancher
                                tracking down an errant calf.

                                       Still he looked back to his phantom pond  –
                                             never to know if an oasis flowed
                                                   less than an hour’s walk away.


                               December, 2018

Let me fall
Deeply into the heart
Of the wanderer,
Under the dappled skin
Into the belly of the thing
Heavy and warm;
The hermit and the outcast
Is met in me
By the stomp of a hoof,
The shifting
Of weight
As he steadies himself;
I look down at my feet
Aware of toes and heels
Colliding with the ground.

Trudging through the fog
I carry it across the years
For every slander and slight
I shed no weary tears

My bones creak and buckle
My skin flays and flakes
I’d cross the plains of hell for you
It won’t be my spirit that breaks

This weight is mine to carry
Flickering days repeated
Under all the layers of wear
You will find me undefeated

In a world where mercy is fading away,
And where hatred and darkness play,
Look towards the Beloved and pray,
Remember the dawn of love's eternal day.