September 17, 2020Poem

There is sadness

lossnaturetimemortality

There is sadness

In a dry bed

Powdered silt

Is dead skin

Animal footprints

Baked by the sun

To be discovered

In another millennium

An oasis bereft of water

More disappointing

Than a mirage

The reality of death

More desperate

When tall trees die

Everything wilts

But the cactus

Nothing about them

Is succulent

But they survive

Into old age

Withered and shrunken

As the drought holds

Just as old bones

Slowly turning to dust

Blow in the wind,

When the tide turns

The rains will bring

A torrent

The bed will fill with life

Everything will begin again

One of these days

This old bed

Will birth a river.