The dusty, baked-clay floor of a once drowned land,

Faced with steep cliffs,

Traced with dry riverbeds,

Spidered with dark gulches,

Below islands of pine-darkened stone,

Overlooking lakes that alternately shimmer white in the sun

Or pool turquoise-blue in the sinks of a famished land,

Forsaken by the mist-clung mountains to the distancing southwest—

All but forgotten as a single wisp of tailing cloud teases

A lonely, sunken lake, shrinking with neglect

Her hope destined for the mountains of his wispy desire.

-34,000 feet, at the base of a cloudbank roofing a thirsty land