By D. DiFrancesco

 

Pale blue cloudless skies

God’s of granite rise to meet it

Hawks and buzzards scream their cries

Parched and cracking earth crumbles bit by bit.

 

Yet life does thrive in this barren wasteland

Angry flora and fauna its solemn masters

Brown and tan the palette at hand

Landscape the pupil, sun the headmaster.

 

Cliff dwellings and hieroglyphs call home this domain

Once proud inhabitants have faded and gone

Arachnids and echoes are all that remain

Of an era that is all but bygone.

 

Still man insists on taming the unattainable

Its lifeblood rerouted and dammed

For cities and towns, its inhabitants expendable

The resultant effects unplanned.

 

Yet with all the scrub and cactus and scorpion

Its peace and beauty abound

The mountains and valleys elicit euphoria

No greater gift can be found.

 

Try as we might to alter its reality

The eagle keeps watch over this land

Man and machine try to prove natures frailty

But nature does refuse their demand.

 

As the celestial heat wave succumbs to twilight

Nocturnal denizens hiss and bay

Under constellations hunters commence the fight

For the strong to live another day.

 

With each days pass the circle unbroken

The animal and land meld into one

Of mountains and desert, lore has been spoken

In God’s own will be done.