Out here there are no hearthstones, <br />Hot grains, simply. It is dry, dry. <br />And the air dangerous. Noonday acts queerly <br />On the mind's eye erecting a line <br />Of poplars in the middle distance, the only <br />Object beside the mad, straight road <br />One can remember men and houses by. <br />A cool wind should inhabit these leaves <br />And a dew collect on them, dearer than money, <br />In the blue hour before sunup. <br />Yet they recede, untouchable as tomorrow, <br />Or those glittery fictions of spilt water <br />That glide ahead of the very thirsty. <br /> <br />I think of the lizards airing their tongues <br />In the crevice of an extremely small shadow <br />And the toad guarding his heart's droplet. <br />The desert is white as a blind man's eye, <br />Comfortless as salt. Snake and bird <br />Doze behind the old maskss of fury. <br />We swelter like firedogs in the wind. <br />The sun puts its cinder out. Where we lie <br />The heat-cracked crickets congregate <br />In their black armorplate and cry. <br />The day-moon lights up like a sorry mother, <br />And the crickets come creeping into our hair <br />To fiddle the short night away.<br /><br />Sylvia Plath<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/sleep-in-the-mojave-desert/
