A path only shadows follow,
a voiceless line through lost love’s wilderness
          leading us, breezes speaking of
places demons cannot tread, where even
          noontide heat seeks god’s approval
to set, sun and constellations tracing
          pain’s wet pattern around heaven’s
bowl, hoarse choruses of colour racing
          as fate’s chariots do to move
a soul such as this, my own you entomb.

                    Here, to where unknown tears have fled,
out of the dread of which creation crept,
          sorrow shed and flesh wet, I have
been led, born again as if the desert
          kept hidden until needed most
an oasis where blood waters orchards
          of heart-heavy fruit, filling throats
and heads with visions of pinched peach-scented
          kisses sent like angels to kill
from infidel lips our strangest secret.

                    Tomorrow hurts so by unseen
force, my heart works to go forward knowing
          that without your warmth life’s a curse,
so I march back through a world flourishing
          when my art encounters its first
form, and my soul its origin, this dirt
          hands of sand by the clouds of storms
cast down, silver shapes thrown like stolen coins
          to nomads, greeting a desert
traveler who has become very rich.