Tag: travel

Undermined

You tear at me
In subtle ways
With unsubtle effects

Like the waves
Slowly undermining
A steep rocky shore

Sometimes I find my eye lingering
On the path I’ve already travelled

I remind myself

Look forward
Or risk running aground

I saw the Earth
Photographed from space
And was startled
By the whisper-thin atmosphere

I live on a smooth
Round globe
Of rock and water
With just a thin veneer of gas

It always surprises me
That the tenacity
And virility
Of life in the desert
Surprises me

But I shrug
And think to myself
Life itself
Is a surprise
Which always surprises me

Perhaps
All that glitters
Is not gold

But I recline
Beneath a golden sky
Above a glittering sea

And therein lies
The greatest wealth
I’ll ever need

More than the kisses
More than the words
More than the moments

I miss
The tingling
Resonance
Of your touch

Of gold and gilt
And opalescence
The shrines we build
To gods and money

Desert shadows and silhouettes
Hazy sky and spectral highlights
Joshua, Tree of Life
Standing tall and lordly

Over this world
Of heat and sorrow
Which takes so much
Then leaves so little

In the desert lands
All gravel stone and sand
But for the cholla
In her prickly shrine

When night falls
And the first stars
Begin to twinkle
In the darkening sky

I am reminded
Earth is a very small place
And I
I am a very small man