Spring in the Desert
Silence, and the heat lights shimmer like a mist of sifted silver,
Down across the wide, low washes where the strange sand rivers flow;
Brown and sun-baked, quiet, waveless, trailed with bleaching, flood-swept bowlders;
Rippled into mimic water where the restless whirlwinds go.
On the banks the gray mesquite trees droop their slender, lace-leafed branches;
Fill the lonely air with fragrance, as a beauty unconfessed;
Till the wild quail comes at sunset with her timorous, plumed covey,
And the iris-throated pigeon coos above her hidden nest.
Every shrub distills vague sweetness; every poorest leaf has gathered
Some rare breath to tell its gladness in a fitter way than speech;
Here the silken cactus blossoms flaunt their rose and gold and crimson,
And the proud zahuaro lifts its pearl-carved crown from careless reach.
Like to Lillith’s hair down-streaming, soft and shining, glorious, golden,
Sways the queenly palo verde robed and wreathed in golden flowers;
And the spirits of dead lovers might have joy again together
Where the honey-sweet acacia weaves its shadow-fretted bowers.
Velvet-soft and glad and tender goes the night wind down the cañons,
Touching lightly every petal, rocking leaf and bud and nest;
Whispering secrets to the black bees dozing in the tall wild lilies,
Till it hails the sudden sunrise trailing down the mountain’s crest.
Silence, sunshine, heat lights painting opal-tinted dream and vision
Down across the wide, low washes where the whirlwinds wheel and swing;—
What of dead hands, sun-dried, bleaching? What of heat and thirst and madness?
Death and life are lost, forgotten, in the wonder of the spring.