The Desert Sings
I
Tumbleweeds, unfollowed dreams, misguided ghosts,
Trekking the desert as unloved men instinctively do.
There are no survivors,
There are no joy,
There are no shields,
Preventing the body from burning within the light.
There are seldom thoughts,
Seldom rest,
Seldom destination,
Ending only when canteens thirst for natural hydration.
II
Freedom, generated by a sixteen-year-old
boy’s hair as he blindly drives through a desert storm.
What he sees as an act of bravery, eternal youth,
Immortality, curiosity, escape, clarity,
Gets lost in the unsung melody of the
Unloved men who passed through before him.
III
Oh joyous day! The birth of new life!
Asphyxiated by the quicksand of mistakes
Of an unloved boy without a father
To guide him through the jungle.
The pebbles settle in the desert and a
Sixteen-year-old boy stumbles upon
An empty canteen. He treks to find
Natural hydration, and the melody repeats.
IV
The boy finds a water hole and drinks
To save his life. Cupping the water
With his misguided fingers, gulping
The water with his unloved tongue,
Bathing his burning face in the water
As a tumbleweed rolls by.
The boy instinctively treks forward,
The sun setting on his demise.
Bones get swept away with the
Tumbleweed in a desert storm.
V
Sand, ashes, pebbles, mountains, hollow men,
One in the same. An unloved woman
Enters the equation. She strategizes,
Discovers a way to survive! (Or so she thinks).
Men flock to her, seeking love, seeking guidance,
Seeking dreams, seeking hydration.
The woman happily lends her secrets away
And falls in line with the band of unsung men.
VI
The woman falls pregnant with life again!
The unloved men band together to provide
The child with a canteen of natural hydration.
Slowly, though, the men seek their own
In order to watch the child grow.
The woman chances worry and fears
For the bosom of her child!
The woman knows she must do what
Has to be done, and the melody plays on.
VII
Tumbleweeds, unsung melodies, misguided dreams,
Trekking the desert in promise of demise.
The woman and her child the only to survive.
There are no seconds, there are no days, there are
No years, no centuries, nor decades.
Time is a tumbleweed rolling through the light.
The woman and her child pass by
Singing a melody of love and destination.