Desert Pilgrim
I love the desert.
There’s something within me
that will forever be visiting
arid landscapes painted
by green scrub brush,
orange dust, and
cloudless blue skies.
All the desert residents know
the relentlessness of the sun,
which scorches visitors and
creates those sharp contrasts
along the jagged rocks.
The vast open spaces are
at first seemingly empty,
yet are more filled with life
than I could ever imagine.
God is right here,
darting around with the mice,
lurking like reptiles beneath rocks,
hiding in holes with the tarantula,
being carried by the wind
with the scent of creosote,
and is alive and bubbling,
like the busy little spring
where the cottonwood grows.
I go to the desert
to know my insignificance,
and to be with an expansive God.
Yet I could never stay there,
for like the scarce water,
my life carries me deeper
and elsewhere.
“If you don’t die of thirst, there are blessings in the desert. You can be pulled into limitlessness, which we all yearn for, or you can do the beauty of minutiae, the scrimshaw of tiny and precise. The sky is your ocean, and the crystal silence will uplift you like great gospel music, or Neil Young.”
This poem has been adapted and was originally shared on March 30, 2017. The original is included in Tomorrow Could Be Wonderful: Brian's Poem of the Day: 365 Daily Meditations Vol. 1.
©Brian Mueller - All rights reserved.
