Desert Life

Your bones are dry.
In vain, your roots seek water.
seek nourishment in the desert sand that surrounds you.

You wonder that you are not dead,
that the arrows flung so recklessly your way
have not drained you of blood.

But they have not.
They have toughened your skin
without closing your soul

And somehow you breathe still,
and rise, drawing strength
from the empty places all around you.

About this poem

Well! This is not the poem I set out to write. But when I carved off all the waste and fat from the poem I intended. This was left.

As an aside, deserts are nowhere as dead as they appear. Stay still and you see they are full of life.

The picture was taken, not in the desert, as the poem implies, but on Cape Cod.

Tom