Arches, Moab, the desert

oh magnificent desert, your
flowers blooming along the roadside, water bursting
from behind a canyon wall to feed a perennial stream in
this dry landscape
where even water hides in deep
crevasses away from the
brutal sun.

oh beautiful desert, windblown, hot,
from your arid floor, look upwards through millions
of years, down to tiny soil organisms
that take centuries to grow,

so delicate, this desert, where
arches fall so suddenly,
quick, take it all in as
a lizard runs across the
road disappearing into
the color of the
desert.