Poet Laura: In the Glow of the Desert

In one of my poems, I write how the clouds kiss the mountaintops of the desert. The autumn skies in a desert are so animated, and the beat of my heart always slows when I’m there.

I mentioned in my Pilgrimage column that my youngest grandson had taught me a new word: querencia. The word querencia stems from the Spanish verb meaning “to desire,” and the noun originally referred to the place in a bull ring where a bull felt safe. But it has come to carry the meaning of that place where one feels serene, safe, and yearns to be; my querencias are the sea and the desert (especially, the desert mountains of west Texas). As you’ll see in my poem about the Chisos Mountains in the Chihuahuan Desert, this desert was once beneath the sea!

Though I’ve not wandered the Sonoran Desert or the Mojave Desert, I’ve driven through them. The Mojave is bordered by the Spring Mountains, a lovely place where one can ride in horse-drawn sleighs as late as April, just a short drive from the stark contrast of Las Vegas. From poet Jake Skeets, here is an excerpt from his poem, The Sonoran Desert:

the ones who live in the desert,
if you knew them
you would understand everything.
—lucille clifton

coming to the desert for the first time
and the night turns over a millennia before you
just say the name mountain
of mountains—make more
out of bird formations or drainage pipes

deserts build water
so drink the lightning ….

—Jake Skeets, excerpted from “The Sororan Desert”

Recently, I came across a poet, Chera Hammons, from a place dear to me, the canyons of the Llano Estacado that are part of what’s called the Great American Desert, semi-arid scrappy lands of the plains. I first came across Hammons’ poem called “Bound,” about a donkey. I do love donkeys, and her matter-of-fact yet emotive poem had me in tears. “Bound” is published in her recent collection Salvage List where her love of the animals shines. Following is an excerpt from her poem These Habits:

Every morning, the coyote passes through
the land that I have called my home,
dips under the pasture fence
and trots northeast toward the canyon,
hidden inside the arroyo.

The coyote’s path was worn when I came here
and still is, as if my human life
has made no impression on this place.
She doesn’t go around me.

At first, I laughed at her audacity.
Then I started every day to watch for her ….

—Chera Hammons, excerpted from “These Habits”

My trips, frequently with my youngest grandson, to the Big Bend National Park and the Davis Mountains inspired the following poem:

Road to Chisos Mountains

No car in sight, an asphalt line leads to horizons,
a road rolling onward, endless, towards the edge
of earth where I, in fortune’s trance, am startled
by a roadrunner, the only sign of life, scurrying
and vanished amidst the hardscrabble brush.

The sun’s tentacles scorch the landscape,
     El Despoblado,
defying life while harboring it.
Cholla, blossomed and burst in buttered hues amidst
wasteland under a cloudless sky where I uncover
the ghost-filled ruins of a stacked-stone house,
long empty of mortals. Darkness drains
a room where, through a crevice, whispers
of light unfold silhouette of an old stove.

Does a ghost tap me on the shoulder as I walk
amongst walls open to cliffs sculpting the mountain’s shelter?
     I am not alone.

I sit on a boulder, roused by the sun, the orb
haloed and bold through gathering clouds.
The warmth of the daystar cradles me
as the circling mountains loom like wagons—
     rivet my vision.
Harmony hangs in my heart.

—Sandra Fox Murphy

Photo by Author (Sierra del Carmen in Chihuahuan Desert, U.S. and Mexico)

Of course, there’s abundant desert poetry found in the Torah and the Bible, as well as in many sacred writings. It was in the Judaean Desert where Jesus faced temptation and harsh wasteland after his baptism. And in Psalm 63, pure poetry:

Psalm 63

O God, thou art my God;
early will I seek thee:
my soul thirsteth for thee,
my flesh longeth for thee
in a dry and thirsty land,
where no water is;
to see thy power and thy glory ….

Poet Jim La Villa-Havelin has written a whole collection of poems called West: Poems of a Place. He writes of the hardening of the arid soils in his poem “How Hard Pan Got That Hard,” and I’m drawn to this poem knowing what a struggle it can be to dig a hole in Texas. Because of hard pan and rock, sometimes one needs a jackhammer! Following are a few lines from La Villa-Havelin’s poem:

cold enough
this morning
everything tightened,
     crisp
even the ground shut down

then I remember days
and days over 100 degrees
dust blowing across it ….

—Jim La Villa-Havelin, excerpted from “How Hard Pan Got That Hard”

And then there’s Edward Abbey, who Outside magazine described as “America’s prickliest and most outspoken environmentalist.” In his book Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness, he writes: “Water, water, water….There is no shortage of water in the desert but exactly the right amount, a perfect ratio of water to rock, water to sand, insuring that wide free open, generous spacing among plants and animals, homes and towns and cities, which makes the arid West so different from any other part of the nation. There is no lack of water here unless you try to establish a city where no city should be.”

In Desert Solitaire, he writes: “The fire. The odor of burning juniper is the sweetest fragrance on the face of the earth, in my honest judgment; I doubt if all the smoking censers of Dante’s paradise could equal it. One breath of juniper smoke, like the perfume of sagebrush after rain, evokes in magical catalysis, like certain music, the space and light and clarity and piercing strangeness of the American West. Long may it burn.”

The desert is a place wild with no promise of survival—a place full of silence and more true than most places. Despite their apparent barrenness, deserts are full of life, such as the mountains of the Chihuahuan Desert are abundant with black bears and mountain lions, while below, javelinas, roadrunners, and quail roam the scrubland. Deserts are where I go for reflection, as I’ve shared in earlier essays.

Photo by Author

In closing, instead of one of my poems, here is “Querencia” by Austin Ray Benson—written by my grandson when he was fifteen. His words speak to the restorative silence of the desert like that described by Edward Abbey, and it’s interesting how he writes this in third person, yet it’s omnisciently emotive.

Querencia

He’s thinking of the future, says the continuous steps forward
and many more back to check on the one in charge.
A grandmother and her grandson, treating the ground like ice,
while they explore the landscape of dust, cactus, and dreams.
The subtle clicks of their cameras to shape the past they will look back on.
He enjoys the time to relax and unwind while the explorer comes out.
They’re alone, but so close, seeking endless memories of each other’s presence.

Another post in the lodge, mere hundreds of feet above sea level yet they are in the mountains,
in the desert, in the middle of nowhere. The post will never retreat,
a constant memory of their times and days while he enjoys his innocence.
This is his land, but it is not, and the state adopted by him although he began elsewhere,
he glances out the window, a gap between the mountains where the sun sets.
Moving forward he sets his mind as the sun falls behind the horizon.
Only a day later would they make their mark mere feet away from a river,
no, not a river but a rapid dividing nations by physical structure.

One day they left, both looking back at the memories they wouldn’t forget.
It’s just a desert, a National Park, stating its presence to the world,
but he grew older and more informed, as he lost time to spend on these ventures.
A child in his soul cries out to the distant
but close landscape as his grandmother journeys alone.
Alone … they both feel it, an emptiness in their souls,
one for the memories and one for the time that they glanced at the stars.
He saw that meteor, he swore it, as his life flew by before his eyes.

—Austin Ray Benson (shared with permission of author)

Your Turn

How does the silence of a desert make you feel? Or your querencia—where is it, and what does it bring to you? Deserts are a magical place. Full of the unexpected and desolation, deserts draw us to horizons, and the depths of the spacious skies are full of a splendid stillness. In the words of Edward Abbey: “What draws us into the desert is the search for something intimate in the remote.”

Featured photo by Yvesen, Creative Commons license via Flickr. Poems by Sandra Fox Murphy and Austin Ray Benson used with permission. Post and post photos by Sandra Fox Murphy. 

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Sandra Fox Murphy

Sandra grew up everywhere as a USAF dependent, rootless, and when exposed to the beatnik poets at Indian Valley College, was smitten with poetry. After retirement from the U.S. Geological Survey, she found herself immersed in storytelling, and ensconced in Texas, researches small-town history and is the author of six novels, including Let the Little Birds Sing, the beginning of the Fidelia McCord Trilogy inspired by a young girl who came to Texas in 1847. Aging Without Grace is her first poetry collection, and her poems have been published at the Ocotillo Review, The Write Launch, Humans of the World, The River, and in several anthologies. Sandra's muses are the environment, history, and the natural beauty and mystery of place.

Latest posts by Sandra Fox Murphy (see all)

• Poet Laura: In the Glow of the Desert - September 3, 2025
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