Desert Notes

I wandered through the desert when a bank of pearly clouds screened the sky overhead. Days in the desert are strange – serene and tempestuous at the same time; where the distant horizon never ceases to shimmer in the floating dust of ancient times; and where the relentless sun kisses a red diamond rattlesnake as it slithers among chollas.

I wandered in the desert when the Joshua trees were in bloom and whistled as the wind swayed their lush tops. My steps moved forward beyond the line of the road when my eyes caught the glorious shape of sturdy monzogranite boulders standing so proudly against the horizon. A sea of golden sand basked in the warm air, and above that the turquoise sky became clean and open as the wind had ceased blowing on my purple cheeks. Here, the southern deserts meet and their colors, brought by the heavy winter rains, gleam intensely on the land, which is a large carpet dappled with tiny gracious flowers.

I wandered in the desert on a day in late March, and all day my eyes kept rolling from the distant boulders to the blue sky that embraced each other in a seamless horizon. This land is sacred as my thoughts here are not loud and my soul becomes light as my steps sink deeper.

Walking into the bright sunlight, I have nothing but a stretching blue shadow that blends peacefully with the earthy-smelling creosote brush. Then, as I listen to the raspy song of a wren at dusk, my whole self becomes one with the wild. Life slithers and I let it envelop me tightly when the stars gleam softly in the dark. The spirit of peace pervades me, and from the top of a cliff ledge, the desert suddenly becomes poetry in motion.