I went five days away from daily care
and pitched a tent where I could feel the sky.
I watched the silence as it drifted by.
I read eternity’s erosive wear.
I went into the desert, and while there
I took to hiking canyons steep and dry,
I took to seeing galaxies on high,
I took to breathing watercolor air.

But more than those, I took a garden grown
within the canyon walls. I took the view
of flowers, bushes, rocks, and mountain snow
no camera lens could frame. I took the sown
embroidery magenta, yellow, blue,
that napped the sand and made the meadows glow.

A crowd of birds in Barstow, loud outside
the door before the dawn’s translucent rays;
a wind that rose to blow two gritty days;
the tiny flowers we called “canyonpride;”
the rubber skunks of retreads that have died
and nestle where the pavement edges craze;
the insect buzz of zippers; and the glaze
of orange hair that seemed an herbicide …

Those notes recall, but miss the garden set
among the canyon walls, and miss the sight
of blossoms, bushes, boulders, mountain snow
too large for camera lens. They miss the net
embroidery of purple, gold, and white,
that flocked the sand and made the meadows glow.