Deserts are a passage of time pilfered from the deep depths of genesis, brazenly weathered by the elements and thereby sulking in the endlessness of the cyclical… a landscape where nothing is left unexposed, save perhaps the conundrum of those finding the means to subsist through its tribulations… for greener pastures beckon, but then they they’re afflicted by the myriad maladies born of abundance as well…

The day is an assimilation, forms turning into apparitions and transpiring towards a single star, whilst the night is a scattering, all things and thoughts, playful or poignant, interspersed amongst the infinities of the interstellar… the dusk is a relief, a ceasefire in a fight where the land and the sky are face to face sans any obstruction, neither pulling any punches, each mocking the other’s nudity, the dawn is a recommencement of the feud, the sky scorching the earth, tying it up in mirages and echoes, and the terra firma having none of it, bleaching the colours out of the empyrean heights in return…

Deserts imbibe as much forbearance as ruthlessness… scorching days unfailingly soothed by pleasant nights… the blinding sun pacified by a congregation of other stars, even as they burn their own effigies aeons away… desolation giving way to consolation… diurnal thoughts focusing on survival as nocturnal introspections pay heed to all the visceral voices in the head…

The night ends with a blinding streak of amber permeating into the dark brooding blue, a sliver cutting through the horizon… what to say of deserts, as someone not native to their meanderings and seldom a witness to their everyday jaunts, the only familiarity being with the undulating hills and mountains jagging out the dusty surrounds… maybe an acknowledgement of how rare yet resilient life is in these surrounds, tempting the wayfarer to ponder over ideologies beyond the empirical…

Musing on deserts, a walk up to Mount Sinai, Egypt