This is nature. There are hills,
Rounded, blunt, burned, out of chaos,
Aspriring to the snowline.
Between the hills lie plains full of
Narrow valleys drowned in a blue haze,
Streaked with ash.
Rain’s water accumulates in the hollows
And leaves pure desertness.
Dark and bitter, the sand drifts in hummocks about stubby shrubs,
And the sculpture of the hills is more wind than water,
Though storms do scar them
In all the desert edges are terrible springs,
Unwholesome, maddening dribbles.
Here, the hot sink of Death Valley has always whirled up
Into a wide, pale sky.
Here, the earth bursts
A land of lost rivers, with little to love