I did some desert camping in the 1990s, and I was surprised at how much I liked it. Always before I’d headed for the mountains or the seashore, but in my 40s I began to appreciate the silence, solitude, and immensity of desert.

As far as I experienced, it didn’t get any grander than Death Valley (I’m chuckling, because I started to type “the high point of my desert camping” or “the zenith” and realized I’d have to say “the low point” or “the nadir” in discussing that landmark).

The process went like this: I came, I saw, I began to slow down, I saw more, I slowed more and felt myself shrink as I collected impressions, until I became a fly on the wall of the universe, a little witness to infinity.

Here is a sonnet I wrote about the experience. It was published in The Enigmatist a year ago. It’s my best example of what can be done with meter in a sonnet.

Here’s what I’ll tell you to capture the journey in words:
wind before Avenal gusted on us for two days;
waking in Barstow I listened to dawn-feeding birds;
you made a tally of creosote shoulder displays.
Roadkill was rubber; the curlicue strips of retreads
littered like corpses the asphalt our truck tires took.
The buzzing at sunset of zippers on tents, packs and beds
were treble we added subtracting some stress again look:

Within a labyrinth of canyon walls
we came upon a garden fully formed.
A glance held snow-robed mountains, waterfalls
run dry, a lake of flowers morning-warmed.
We eavesdropped on the galaxy, and found
all tendency to urgency unwound.

I’m taking a week off now. I’m not going to Death Valley but I will be in warm weather and arid landscape. I won’t be using electronic devices. I’ll be back on June 20.