Desertion

"I love the desert. It's so clean."
- Lawrence of Arabia


Is dust
sand's ash
or a particulate lack of water?

Dry hearts beat the night
and leave the day to its sun.

Claims disappear, roofless.
The single tree's short offer
every enemy must together accept.

I love the desert.
It's so mean.
It rewards callous
with hellish.

There, effort kills.
To be of use
also kills.
The desert knows 
what nature and gods are.

It rewards faith 
with flood,
blasphemy
with ice,
and logic
with grain upon mountain
of unseasonable demands.