Desert Moon
A portrait of a cowboy circa 1870s by the painter Virgil Day. The cowboy rides a black horse with a fire red mane and a translucent glow illuminating its shape. The rider hangs low behind the head, almost becomes swallowed by the darkness in the night. His six shooter at his waist shines, the same tone as the moon.
The moon appears to be an eye for some great deity, sketched faintly and masked with clouds and colors in the sky. Or it could be a fire, maybe distant, seemingly close, like a mirage. Fowl ride either toward its light, or from its fire and almost appear as humans making camp for the night.
Virgil Day said that the man was based off a poem about an outlaw turned sheriff.
The man in the poem had killed four others, supposedly in self defense and was wanted for three years in seven states before a US Marshal handed him a badge.
In the poem, the narrator describes the cowboy as not knowing what he is running from, not knowing what he is looking for.
*** ***
Ancestors my grandfather told me about.
They traveled out west to California in 1840s, much like the cowboy in Virgil Day’s painting. They starved on their way out west, froze in the desert at night, nearly died of heat exhaustion in the daytime. Had biblical visions from the great gaze of the fire in the sky. Jubilee wrote in his journal, “Saw birds eating my eyeballs this morning. Sure it was not a dream. Haven’t ate in four days now. Dreamed we cooked up father last night for supper.”
In California, they struggled for eighteen months surviving, mining for gold. Finally in a place with the reputation similar to the phrase, ‘Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,’ they strike gold.
They were on tribal lands, which they agreed not to enter, and were scalped and drowned to death by the natives.
*** ***
A story about my first dog when it died.
They say it wanders into the wilderness when it is time to die. I searched for it high and low and between. Every day before and after school. I cried at night before I went to sleep.
I have a reoccurring dream at night sometimes about scathing the desert in the old days searching for my dog, like it is lost and crying somewhere for me. Like it ain’t dead, like it ain’t watching me, lost myself, under the pale moon, starving and cold.
I can still hear its soft bark, a yelp, see its shadow form under the moonlight waking me from my sleep.
The Desert Moon
It's beneath the sand
where all is buried
in desert low
like a pearl
the pool
Beneath the sand
down where it's
neither
hot nor cooled
Beneath the sand
of Time
where all lies
in waiting
Beneath the sand
drawn for its own
full occasion
by the tide
Beneath the sand
the pull of water
dips anew...
Beneath the sand
the desert Moon.
11.26.2023
The Desert Moon challenge @Huckleberry_Hoo
Godforsaken Desert Lows
He died in the winter of his 32nd year
Coming home to a place he'd never been before
He couldn't leave yesterday behind him
You might say he was dead all along
You might say he lost the keys to the door
When he first came to the desert his life was far away
Off the trails, hanging by a grain of sand
All his dreams broken and he wished he cared more
It keeps coming down and he won't last much more
In the Godforsaken Desert Lows
I've seen it snowing sand on the moon
The sunlight behind the night sky is louder than we know
Godforsaken Desert Lows (Godforsaken lows)
Godforsaken Desert Lows (God only knows)
He fell from idolic mountains
He hit the dusty roads below
He couldn't see everything he was meant to be
They say he went crazy
When the sand blocked the sun
He couldn't make friends with the moon or memories
Now we walk without him
With his desolation and dunes
Seeking forgiveness with every step we take
He lost sight of himself and we can't ever understand
The turbulence of a lost soul in wasted desert sands
In the Godforsaken Desert Lows
I've seen it snowing sand on the moon
Talked to God but he didn't reply
Godforsaken Desert Lows (Godforsaken lows)
Godforsaken Desert Lows (God only knows)
Now his life is full but it's over
And our hearts know a new kind of fear
Complicated hearts we can all understand
Weeping under mountains instead of climbing some more
We're all scarred from our own Godforsaken wars
In the Godforsaken Desert Lows
I've seen it snowing sand on the moon
I've seen a man lose his life too soon
Fuck these Wasted Desert Lows
Godforsaken Desert Lows
I've seen it snowing sand on the moon
Strangers around the campfire and everybody's low
We're all wasted in these Godforsaken Desert Lows
Endlessness
Echoes resonate, reverberating
In the stillness of man’s soul.
Rays from a lingering wolf moon
Reflect and follow the shadows
Of scattered grains of sand,
Traversing
To create a dance
Older than life itself,
Choreographed in the crux of man's life
And derived from stone cold, aged hearts.
The endlessness extends and settles,
Stretching across vast miles of sand
To scour the the earth's dark night
And perpetuate the restlessness
Found only in the glow of a desert moon.