Poems about the desert transport readers to vast, arid landscapes where the sun-drenched sands whisper ancient tales of resilience and solitude. These verses paint a familiar yet mysterious portrait of the desert, capturing the stark beauty of endless dunes, the harsh embrace of heat, and the haunting silence of vast expanses. Poems about the desert often evoke a sense of introspection, highlighting the vastness of both the external environment and the human spirit. They employ metaphor about loneliness, dryness, departure. They explore themes of isolation, survival, and the awe-inspiring power of nature, inviting readers to wander through the sands, experiencing the solitude and serenity unique to this barren yet captivating terrain.
In the Desert by Stephen Crane
In the desert
I saw a creature, naked, bestial,
Who, squatting upon the ground,
Held his heart in his hands,
And ate of it.
I said, “Is it good, friend?”
“It is bitter—bitter,” he answered;
“But I like it
“Because it is bitter,
“And because it is my heart.”
Desert Places by Robert Frost
Snow falling and night falling fast, oh, fast
In a field I looked into going past,
And the ground almost covered smooth in snow,
But a few weeds and stubble showing last.
The woods around it have it – it is theirs.
All animals are smothered in their lairs.
I am too absent-spirited to count;
The loneliness includes me unawares.
And lonely as it is, that loneliness
Will be more lonely ere it will be less –
A blanker whiteness of benighted snow
WIth no expression, nothing to express.
They cannot scare me with their empty spaces
Between stars – on stars where no human race is.
I have it in me so much nearer home
To scare myself with my own desert places.
Desert by Patricia Hooper
Where there’s a river,
that tastes of direction.
Where there’s an orchard,
that says survival.
Where there’s a desert,
that changes everything,
as if earth hadn’t wanted
to fill only her own need.
Desert Rain by Glenn Ward Dresbach
Flash of your silver pinions
From low clouds thunder-torn
Was not enough to moisten
the sabered leaf and thorn.
Either you came too early,
And had no hope to stay,
Or came too late, and going
Took all the hope away.
Caught in some flinted crevice
Enough of you remains
An hour for gray birds splashing
With dreams of better rains.
Now over all the desert
Faint breath of you goes by.
Behind you fades a rainbow
The sands again are dry.
The Desert Dispels by Julia Wong Comt
the desert dispels this hallowed ground of coarse insinuations, complex of city, of human soul wishing to daub itself in iron, cement, stained glass windows, saintly osculations, medieval mosaics.
the desert brings in that infinite layer, its color between white and flesh, between beige and cinnamon smeared on the horizon; it delivers clear thoughts, sand in mouth, discomfort almost necessary to recreate the glorious aura of a happy, calm, dissolute mind, capable of harboring it all and digesting it, precise mouthful.
Read the full poem here.
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