Perspiration drips onto
The skin made raw by the spade
I used to dig my vehicle
Out of the sand dune.
Like Cain I wander the desert
But can find no refuge.
It's Christmas 2011 and
thirty eight degrees.
"Fuck Off!", say the caretakers,
"It's Christmas!,
We don't do business
On December twenty-fifth!"
I feel that's not biblical,
just sad.
But the desert has compensations
- landscape charms,
Old ruins,
strange sculptured rocks,
big termite mounds, and
birds with attitude.
I've seen fleeting luminous colours
that like pots of gold
are impossible to grasp,
and trees that are almost
human as they droop
from lack of water.
In the desert man is not
able to hide away
like the animals.
In the desert man
cannot hide his desires.
He can fufil them, or not,
but cannot hide them.
Are our actions ever
spontaneous or always
pre meditated?
To what extent is
generosity on our part
magnaminous or
self serving?
Maybe the desert animals
know these answers.
Maybe my dogs know them too,
because their heads are
cocked to one side,
listening without judgment,
Like a therapist, and
their eyes are bright
Above their panting tongues.
I smile at them
as I put away the spade
under that hot sun
in the desert
at Christmas time 2011.
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