Awake Unto Me

Running In the EveningI've run until my breath has gone away;the rising winds disturb the forbidding sands;the cacti rustle with the close of day,their blackened forms in all directions stand.My eyes are dazed from the shimmering heat,the lemon-gusts of sage dry out my nose;I look around as evening, like a sheetof darkened blue, to moonless blackness grows.A windless rustle eerily crawls awayagainst horizons always past my sight...I can't be sure now--what has come my waycould be the wind--or something from the night--And as the darkness chills my sun-burned skin,I sense the desert slowly closing in.