It is like lying beneath burnt ashes
A blister on your memory. Beside
The rocks two eyes open again.

The tired sky is so dry it breaks
And then melts together again
and breaks and melts together again;
at sunset I nearly cry
Soon the clouds will be like that too.

I have been counting down the days until
The earth begins to lean away again
From the sun.

But who has been counting down the
Days until the sun becomes too hot
For the earth to touch?  And what will
The sky have to say then?

The old man beneath the mesquite tree
Whose roots are shallow and wide;
It is him who has such thoughts so close to death.