On horizons edge, white hills pile up. Empty azure
awaits the clouds first forays.
Coyote tracks return to motion,
yellow duster turning to crimson.
Sunlight through dust,
seeks, sifts.
Sage bush, formation deep. A rider passes through,
slips in and out of the corridors of sight.
Between the seen and the unseen, red bursts from
green, fans across the azure.
Sunlight in dust,
white wrenched from red.
Angled rhythm clatter splinters on alabaster
hill land. Beetle scrambles from rose-pink
to idle ram skull, the new sanctuary.
Oh high, the coyotes seen, retraced steps.
Sunlight rises,
bleached visage over hollyhocks.
Stone Gaze pedernal turns to shadow black,
antlers of wraith bone splayed across the azure,
in ten thousand sunlight strands.
A horse kicks, a grip tightens.
Clouds stampede, light rendered in twain,
wraith bone crashes.
Map flutters on the desert wind.
She’s going to wander the hollyhock fields!
~~~
Picture found here: http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/59.204.2
Parts inspired by poems by the Chinese poet Yang Wan-Li: http://skyraftwanderer.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/poetry-by-yang-wan-li.html
Golden Giraffes Riding Scarlet Flamingos Through The Desert of Forever 
Groovy- I really dug the flow and movement of this piece. My favorite line was-
“Stone Gaze pedernal turns to shadow black,
antlers of wraith bone splayed across the azure,
in ten thousand sunlight strands.”
Peace.
some really vivid imagery in this….love the rest on the map fluttering to the earth…i love all the life you breathe into this…with coyotes and bugs and contrast it against the skull…
Georgia o’keefe – one of my FAVOURITE painters….love your use of the picture as inspiration…and the desert like qualities you embedded within the poem ….in parts,mots so abstract and colourful….but when I went back and read again, it made more sense…like the deer, the stag, as a traveller , and it’s almost like you paint a picture of this environment as seen through his eyes – (at least to me anyway!)…. Very stylistic, very cool, and I loved how it all knitted together…..painting a picture of life through it’s beginnings and it’s ends
It flutters in the hazy desert heat, your brushes are working fine!
“Sunlight rises,
bleached visage over hollyhocks.”
. . .
“Map flutters on the desert wind.
She’s going to wander the hollyhock fields!”
It is the sunlight moving, sorting through all things, and–aided by the wind–gone off to the hollyhocks. An apt evocation of O’Keefe for me, dark flint and hollyhocks absent in this image. But I am also thinking of the fable in which the sun and the wind vie for who can get a traveler to take off his coat. The sun wins.
Wonderful –
Sunlight in dust,
white wrenched from red.
Angled rhythm clatter splinters on alabaster
hill land. Beetle scrambles from rose-pink
to idle ram skull, the new sanctuary. k.
Sky rafter, did you know your poem got put on Zite? K.
In its words it becomes so visual itself
Great poem with magnificant imagry!
Vivid imagery that took me there … thank you
Map flutters on the desert wind.
She’s going to wander the hollyhock fields!
The end of the journey of life – like a map fluttering,
but the beginning of a new journey into the after life – wandering through hollyhock fields. Beautiful! Gracefully done.
Very nice. I like the colors the poem paints. It’s cool how sunlight — when it hits things and scenery — the kind of brilliant colors and shades it produces. I like how you describe them here in your poem. Very much enjoyed visualizing your poem. 🙂
I know I left a comment on your beautiful poem when you posted it for dVerse OLN. I’m sorry if it got trashed by the browser or whatever. If I offended you in some way, please let me know.
Charles Miller