THE CALL OF DEATH VALLEY

poems

By: charles ernest watson

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The desert is a great place to confront your deepest thoughts and emotions and to try and make sense of the struggles of life. It is a place that can put a hot spell on you and your dreams and deepest yearnings. It is a quiet solitary place where relentless heat bears down on your memories and yearnings to make something of it all. It is a place of great paradox. Bright sun and dark shadows. Mirage of naked beauty rising in a silver mist. There is serious danger as well as immense beauty all around. Rattling of a warning not to stay too long. Fear as thirst claims you and confirms you went too far and hard. This is a place, real and imaginary where the sun is big and hot and you can sweat the devil out. You can confront the wisdom of the ancients as well as the brightness and darkness of your own soul. It is a land you can go into and possibly never leave. While some are drawn to oceans and mountains and forested terrain this is to me a land of grand and unceasing imagination. It is where I can confront my deepest secrets and longings. It is a place of gentle caress of wind and heat and sand. It is a place of endings lying bleached and stoic on the ground. In my books of poetry I invite you to wander into this Desert Zone.