the soil is baked hard and crusty,
I dig in my toes but barely manage
to scrape it.  a dry wind
like hot breath scours,
soaking into every fingerprint formed
in the landscape.
I stand on a rock face some hundred feet
above it, the arrid plain featureless
allowing the eye to see endlessly
til the edge of the planet rolls off
into the horizon. the sky
like a sentinal with stone clouds
moving quickly, pounding their way
along the glittering dome.
for a moment one obscures the
sun and I am bathed in
shadows, the edges of which
like torn paper against
a bare lightbulb: blinding.
I scream and my voice is absorbed
by the dirt and rocks and smal
tufts of wild grass which crinkle
dry: the sound is hollow and
seems to burst from somewhere
that isnt me.
here ambition is meaningless
and humanity is dead ear
and I am nothing and
so are you.