Desert Markings

Ms.AyeVee
"Desert Markings" (2022)
Poem
Courtesy the author.

Listen to Ms.AyeVee perform her poem for The Art Box podcast here.

"Desert markings"

Broken pieces of the past
scattered across the desert floor
Glass sparkling in the sun
explosions echoing in the distance
Airplaines and powerlines hum
man's footprints are loud here
present even after 60 years
But what are decades to a land eons old
A mear blink?
World number two
art scattered across the desert floor
sparkling in the sun
A moment etched in time
man's achievements honored on sacred land
Even after 60 years of nature desperately trying to wash it
away
In a Flash
Flood
Of memories
Laughing into the distance
What is time
To a land that has always been
Maybe we don't belong here
In the place of what once was
Soft sand now hard as rocks
Cracking under my feet
Telling secrets
Of oceans run dry
And sand storms wiping the slate clean
Like before
We stand here
Desperately looking to the past for meaning
Asking the rocks if they remember
And they laugh
A soft whistle carried on a harsh desert wind
Kicking up blinding dust
asking us do you remember?
Gazing to the other side of the rift
With mounds of shotgun shells and creosote
some things are not so easily washed away
The desert does have memory
Long and hard fought
Like carving trenches in Colicchie
Channels made by the deserts most revered visitor
An absentee protector
Rain
Swift and unforgiving
As it washes away what once was.
Morning dew sparkling in the desert sun
A sight short-lived but still beautiful.
A lesson in mortality
Maybe memory is the only gift we'll every truly receive
In the silence of the Mojave desert
all that needs to be said is thank you