A Cold Desert’s Night
Five layers’ deep of blanket cover me,
An old arthritic hound dog at my side,
As faithful as Argus to Ulysses,
Against the cold of winter’s night we hide.
A squat cast-iron stove the only heat,
And that by burning stores of gathered wood,
It hopes to cold tyrannical to beat
And keep us warm as well a fire should.
The night gets in my veins and bids me rest.
In hibernation briefly I will be.
While drifting off to sleep in cotton nest
I hear the vast nocturnal symphony:
My heart drums out a baseline rhythm here,
The wailing wind takes up the melody,
I creaking harmony of timbers ear
While roving coyotes sing a rhapsody.
And so I sleep beneath a sea of stars,
Unbroken by men’s city walls and lights
Whose garishness the speckled nightscape mars,
And nestle I within the rocky heights,
