.
I’m just a lonely traveler
   on this earth
Sometimes it feels as if I'm
waiting for the sky to fall
with each passing breathe
       of wind

   Standing alone,
   a windswept tree
   leans downwind;
conspicuously wrought,
   naked and bowed
   by the grinding
      silent forces
  at nature's whim

Rootless tumbleweeds
roll by randomly:
    broken off,
spinning clockwise,
never looking back,
timeworn and tired
of resisting the prevailing
    high desert wind
and its unheld temper

Rattling the tinder
   dry sagebrush
like songless wind-chimes;
    voiceless fugitives
wreathing a bellowing silence


    Jesse Stillwater