Before; After

Desert Poems

1

How to assemble a shattered life?

Gather the shards,

Return to the desert.

Return to the hot.

Light a fire hot enough to melt

The glass into something new.

2

I've returned to the desert.

Always a layer of dust the rain never washes,

Only the dirt and wet blended into a sticky mud.

I am a sticky mold of water and dirt.

3

Desert animals claw out of dry caves desperate for water.

The rain, then, is a celebration of life.

Too bad it's a celebration for both predator and prey.

Water is blood in the desert.

4

Deserts are lonely,

Life is patient and efficient,

But lonely nevertheless.

The small rodents may be bountiful,

But only because they know how much they will lose.

The coyote and bobcat thrive, knowing

That responsibility over another can get them killed.

Prey survive through mathematics.

Predators survive through distance.

Which am I: predator or prey?

I lack desert-survival skills.

5

So much to see in the desert when I look up:

Sunrises and their blood-orange skies

Sunsets and their pink-purple painted clouds,

Stars and planets glittering in the night,

And memories of us,

The version of us that found safety in the dark.

6

Love for the desert-born is like the rain.

Desert animals can drown in an arroyo if caught unaware.

Desert animals can die of thirst if trusting in a remembered stream.

7

People forget that it gets cold in the desert, too.

It's the wind, mostly.

It slices;

It fingers its way inside,

And races across the barren landscape of my skin.

No natural barriers here,

Only the useless cry of

"No, no, no" echoing into silence.

Forced open, bare and roughed.

Forced to carve barriers in the skin, in my head.

I use coldness to fight the temptations of heat.

Ever the victor, nature always wins.

I'm not made for the desert.

I forget that cold burns as much as heat.