Desert Sestina (Rachael Noble)

In the heavy silence
Blood in the dust
And on a stone.
Bones already bleaching in the heat,
Life soaked into the earth.
Sun holds a vigil for the dead.

Sun sets, the sky is dead
Still there is only silence.
Blood-soaked earth,
No wind to stir the dust.
The heavy, crushing heat
And blood on a stone.

Blood, bones, and a stone.
All else is sand, stone-dead.
Madness born of heat,
Anger in the silence.
Death in the dust,
Blood drunk by parched earth.

Half buried in the earth
Almost like a stone,
Bones in the dust,
Sign of the dead,
Reveal nothing, only silence,
Burning in the heat.

A blow in the heat
Blood spilt on the earth
No reply in the silence.
Weapon made of a stone.
Now the dead
Lies in the dust.

Now wind blows the dust,
A sandy blast of heat.
The sky watches over the dead.
Bones covered by earth
Now there is only the stone,
And the silence.

Through the silence, in the dust,
By the stone, in the heat,
Under the earth there is the dead.
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WRT310 Creative Writing, Spring 2006
Published with permission of poet