The silence ripples across the parched desert
like a vulture swooping close to the ground. 
For miles around there is nothing but cracked earth
and souvenirs of life, molded in bleached bone.

In the still, dry atmosphere, the sun paints the sky
with a canopy of ever changing peach.
The air snaps with a piercing emptiness
echoing the rifts in the soil with pristine clarity.

The deprived land cries out in its quest for water,
yet if it comes, the rain will cause little change.
This mighty thirst can only be quenched momentarily
and hence begin again the never ending cycle.




            january 2003