The mountaintops are bare of mists

The sun burns away the mesa walls

She comes down, dropping blossoms in

Her wake, palo verde and saguaro flowers

The desert sings of her, my muse

My muse, she sings of the desert

And in the rests between, she turns to me

My match, my spark among the dunes

And lights in me a fire to last through

The black nights where stars scream

Paeans to gods nameless and profane

There are no lovers in the hazy darkness

That have not, in anguish, loved her

There are no poets alone in the scrubland