Summer in the Desert

Excepting snakes, the desert makes night creatures of us all.

We wait the long day in languid silence
while the sun burns across the sky.
We hide in dark corners, fighting the madness,
until the evening drops, the light fades, the earth exhales.

When the night winds blow like the whispers of dryads,
when stars pierce the deepening blue,
when cicadas set down their bows and crickets pick them up again,
then we come alive.

We feel our old strength returning.
We have only been sleeping these hot, dreary hours,
until the sun went down
and we could see:
the lingering twilight
the bird shadows measuring the sky
the clear light of a rising moon.