Deserts

I wonder what lies beneath
The piles and heaps and shifting mounds of
Fluted, convoluted
Rippled dips and escalades
That rearrange themselves
and rearrange again
again . .
Sculpted by the scorching, arid winds.

Does it have a choice?
In where is more, is less,
Is sharply ridged and curved and bent,
Is scoured until nothing grows
in the dessicated winds?

Or will it burst to life again
beneath a quenching rain
that's merely been
delayed . .

I've opened this more times than I can count, aching to add to it. It has felt as if I have been muzzled for a season, even from recording the golden days, where little tests I've failed again and again were no longer failed.

But failing is ingrained in me, and change, even good change, comes in fits and starts. Becalmed by the promise of what is to come when the tests are collected, the pens put down, and I envision the very real possibility that I have not scored as highly as I'd have liked helps to correct my choices once again.

No, it's more than that. More than wanting to succeed, to please, to ace some test. It's wanting to model peace to those around me who seem to be hurting more than usual today, to go beyond words and doctrine and pithy arguments . . to know there are answers that work not only for me, but them as well.