Spring In The Desert

Silence, and the heat lights shimmer like a mist of sifted silver, Down across the wide, low washes where the strange sand rivers flow; Brown and sun-baked, quiet, waveless, trailed with bleaching, flood-swept bowlders; Rippled into mimic water where the restless whirlwinds go.

On the banks the gray mesquite trees droop their slender, lace-leafed branches; Fill the lonely air with fragrance, as a beauty unconfessed; Till the wild quail comes at sunset with her timorous, plumed covey, And the iris-throated pigeon coos above her hidden nest.

Every shrub distills vague sweetness; every poorest leaf has gathered Some rare breath to tell its gladness in a fitter way than speech; Here the silken cactus blossoms flaunt their rose and gold and crimson, And the proud zahuaro lifts its pearl-carved crown from careless reach.

Like to Lillith’s hair down-streaming, soft and shining, glorious, golden, Sways the queenly palo verde robed and wreathed in golden flowers; And the spirits of dead lovers might have joy again together Where the honey-sweet acacia weaves its shadow-fretted bowers.

Velvet-soft and glad and tender goes the night wind down the cañons, Touching lightly every petal, rocking leaf and bud and nest; Whispering secrets to the black bees dozing in the tall wild lilies, Till it hails the sudden sunrise trailing down the mountain’s crest.

Silence, sunshine, heat lights painting opal-tinted dream and vision Down across the wide, low washes where the whirlwinds wheel and swing;-- What of dead hands, sun-dried, bleaching? What of heat and thirst and madness? Death and life are lost, forgotten, in the wonder of the spring.