Eating Desert Sands, It Will Come

~ and I’d rather be on a rock ~

Image by alitaylor public domain

Ecstatic shimmering

of heat-crazed air

thrums above a chameleon

which is and is not there,

on a huddle of meiotic rocks

clinging to shy patches of cool.

Subject to whims and edicts of light,

now mottled then opaquely tan

suddenly slate or jasper,

nostrils flared, it moves

into a quiet awareness of caution.

Clearly, it knows more than I.

The chameleon shifts

from shadow to igneous

to serpent and sky,

tamarisk to autumn

yellow air into absence.

And lightning tongue

slicing mirages far away.

I’m convinced it knows more than I.

An owl meditates in a beefy yucca,

breath of a snake

lingers over unborn plants,

a fat worm crawls

out of a fallen desert fruit