Random geology, sure,
but rocks piled with such
seeming design and deliberation,
a clean-swept uproar
without any swathe of green
to disguise the wind’s erosion.
Chollo and yucca
and Joshua tree form simple
trinities everywhere; bleak fruition
of some invisible
gardener whose divine ingenuity
makes beauty out of driest devotion
to life itself where
water’s as rare as heat
is certain; life like silent elation
where lizardly flicker
of tongue and tail between
hot stones is testament to jubilation
of a survival
never assured, neither stray nor
deliberate but hungry; in habitation
tough as an upheaval
of desert stone offering
shadow’s refuge, a savage exaltation.
