As little children do..

Under the desert moon

I walked the dry skeletal land

stumbling over black contorted

bones of rock.

Barren as a brickyard in the dark:

only ants and spiders moved across the clinkered ground.

In the torchlight spider eyes

reflected golden green.

A soft wind teased the tent,

the fabric skin breathed slowly out and in,

leaving secret whispers in the air.

Cicadas in the wadi sung

and on the very edge of hearing

distant waves were booming in the night.

And I am somewhere in the dark

above a nameless wadi

on an arid peninsula

in a foreign land.

No rhyme or reason to it all,

just the deep, deep draw of solitude

that needs to be alone

to learn to wonder once again

as little children do.

(c) A McN