Ein Gedi

         Novelty and the desert are abhorred by man.

                                The Immortal
                                Jorge Luis Borges

Up by the canyon's mouth there is a trailhead. Walk.
The chilly pre-dawn air betrays as yet no hint
of the white rage of noon, whose heat will caulk
with salty sweat my backpack, shirt and skin.

Ascend along the path that hugs the southern rim.
There, at the summit, climb a narrow, flinty ledge.
Put down the pack, sprawl on the very brim.
Soak in the silence, drink some water, stretch.

Behind me, in the East, the sun has cleared the ridge
of Moab, its nearly horizontal rays a bridge
that spans the Dead Sea valley with a single leap.
Two buzzards circle there above the deep.

Ahead, the hills of Judah are already bright
With probing fingers of advancing light.
Last violet shreds of disappearing night
into the crevices and pools of rock take flight.

Southward, a distant, shimmering, smoky haze
hints of another wilderness -- the forty-year maze
of Sinai, where a voice out of a bush ablaze
was conjured by a shepherd to dispel the daze
   of solitude. 

Northward, the Mount of Temptation draws my gaze.
There, a fasting carpenter, alone for forty days, 
has wrestled with the spirit of the lonesome place,
with terror in the night, with fear in the face
   of solitude.

In truth --
there are no others in the desert -- hence no Self, no Mind
to bear the crushing nothingness of sand and space and time,
no one but you, ineffable, enduring and sublime,
sweet solitude, the soul of the desert, sister mine.

                                         March 1, 2004

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