Under Other Suns Than These

The desert burned denial at the setting sun;
the brilliant shadows of the day
surrendered into weary watercolors.
The land sighed cool relief anticipating the indifferent Moon,
and in the losing light remained just one point of interest:

a man dressed in gray, with a pack of white,
feet of stone and eyes of death.
He trod a narrow path of hard-cracked earth;
a wire fence drew back in fear
and the sand cried blood at the agony
of his every step.
Careless thunder to the west constant' broke
its mumbled promises of rain.
The mountain ignored us both--
         Him and me alike;
But I spied him,
         And he caught me watching…

Turning to consider me, he stopped his lurching march.
His grimaced mouth bled terror through a weedy beard,
And his eyes saw blackness turned inward:
         Beetles in his soul,
         An appetite for dead leaves
                   from forgotten winters.
He raised neither hand nor staff; neither word nor cry dripped forth
On the sudden, his gaze snapped back on the crack-glazed dust,
he shrugged his greyness tighter
and scuttled on his weary random path.

The strange tryst ended, I turned back to my own road
And found it blocked: a bone-white box
in the final dreary rays of the red, collapsing sun
contrasted the telling talisman:
one dry and dying leaf...

...The desert burns regret into each rising sun;
I choose a careful path through aimless dust
         en route to nowhere,
a small but heavy load cradled in my arms
Shining white in the arrogant shadows of the mountain...