There is within this arid, endless
Stretch of desert sand a memory:
A distant hint of water bursting forth
From tortured, crumpled rocks,
Cascading to the thirsty plain below.
But there instead of irrigating fields
To life – creation's dream refreshed –
It disappoints, and simply soaks
Into a silent sea of sand,
An imprint of an estuary,
A fleeting primal aspiration
That might have been, but now
Is long since lost.
From above the desert, at 35000'
November 2010
