The tales I weave
Wind through the trees
At midnight's witching hour
The darkened land
The night's soft hand
The blooming orchid flower.

They never stray
Across the day
To arid, fallow land
The baking earth
The scorching curse
The sprawling desert sand

There's beauty, hence:
The soft nonsense
I've conjured word to line
My dancing hands
My mind demands
To praise the desert kind.

I bless the hush
The jagged brush
Of lovely creosote.
The prickly pear
The burning air
The endless, sandy motes.

Each winding dune
The crests at noon
Like molten, golden earth
Reminds me still
Of good and ill
Of beauty and its worth.

My mind tips South
To scour the mouth
Of canyon, creek and sky
My eyes are open
To skies unbroken
To mountain peaks on high.

I've only spied
With inner eye
And pictures on a page-
Yet, in his gaze
His heated rage
I know the barren blaze.