Beneath these mountains’ watchful gaze
The desert waits.
Quietly, sands shift. Grains slip underneath
black asphalt. The road slowly crumbles.
The desert waits.
A coyote slinks through tangled scrub.
The desert waits.
An engine’s whine recedes into the distance.
A lizard crawls across the fractured rock.
The desert waits.
A Joshua Tree lays dying in the sand.
The desert waits.
Ants and termites chew its tender flesh
and spit its spirit back into the ground.
The desert waits.
Patient cactus blooms against the night.
The desert waits.
Bats will sip sweet nectar in the dark
until bright flowers fade. Then for a year
the desert waits.
Rains have made swift rivers flood this land
and greed has torn deep mines into its earth.
Where once a few men roamed, now many live.
They fill the fragile valleys with their homes.
The desert waits and guards her secrets well.
Her dormant seeds will spring to life again
when we are gone, a memory on the wind.