Desert Moonlight

A rustle of leaves through the Suara

Where trees have yet to grow;

The silver sand between

Waits for the shadow to go.

The moon shines down on Death

Among those prickery plants

As a rattler writhes his way

Into a deadly dance.

A distant dog is baying

And a coyote answers his moan.

The cactus is outlined sharply

On ground as gray as a bone.

And the rattler glides in circles

And then into elipses,

Fantastical geometry

In a kingdom of eclipses.

The blackness of the hills

Is blacker than Satan's mind,

But the blackness of the shadows

Is ink of a different kind:

It is an ominous dark

That holds a hundred eyes;

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It is the frenzied dark

Seen in a madman's eyes.

Not for all the gold

That man could ever plight

Would I go out alone

On a moonlit desert night.