This quiet city built into the sand
that rules with flat indifference in this place,
I wander with my ravaged feet, my hands
thrust into pockets, and my naked face
bare to the scalding sun, the only god
to rule with any verdict over stone,
who is the coarse material, the law
dictating every rooftop, every dome,
to thicken still the stillness, hot and white,
the ancient poverty of such a place
as this, some vestige of an age gone by
that men constructed in their dearth of days.
07/12/2016
en route to San Fransisco