Nomad's Song

By the blaze of the last camp-fire

We will eat, we will drink, we will be merry,

Watching the sparks fly upward;

The flame-fed pifion burn red.

The peaks will wear high scarlet plumes,

The desert beneath us turn purple,

The mesas burn gold, the rainclouds drip crimson,

Rainbow-fringed at the tip;

While we feed our last long camp-fire

With the resinous pifion, awaiting

The hour when a blue hush shall take

Mile on mile, canyon-wall behind canyon-wall,

Ridge after ridge, summit beyond black summit,

Mountain range above mountain range -

Fading to silence.

Then seeing grey ash, glowing coal

Quench our signal-flame's earth-constellation

That kindled the edge of the darkness,

We shall descend once again,

Slip out like gray ghosts of cliff-dwellers

Beyond the last camp-fire, into the desert's cold heart.