Sun half-lit its pocked, lunar face.
Its scowl seemed to demand
respect from a fox busily
digging rats in hot sand.
Winds gossiped in huge ears, unheard.
Weary travelers bound elsewhere
glanced up, uncurious as birds.
How could it answer prayer?
Salt weathers came untasted, went,
smoothing its scarped cheekbones
and chiseled brow to an unmeaning
tall among nameless stones.
Incessant iterations of
mute moons and speechless suns
tendered the gift, unused, of time.
Silken, amnesic dunes
flung evanescent scarves that blurred
its baffled stare—yet when
the desert effervesced with rain’s
rejuvenating din
blind eyes like sunless planets paired
motionless in dead space
trickled, as when brief understanding
wets a stony face.