High Desert Sunset

High Desert Sunset

The high desert view is disarming, almost incapacitating,

the harsh white light intensifying, tormenting the valley’s dunes,

declaring the summer sun’s nascent descent below the baked ridges

of the serrated peaks that stretch across the sunburned horizon.

The basin below shimmers in undulating ribbons of ascending heat,

moving like veiled Persian dancers in a silver screen Sinbad film.

The buttes and pinnacles scattered below blazing a rich fiery red,

before congealing into a deep, sanguine crimson as the sun’s rays

are ricocheted skyward by the purple walls of the distant Sierras.

As the air cools the breeze quickens, alternately warm to cool,

teasingly inviting one to respire a bit deeper, relishing a sentient breath,

consuming the microscopic dust of sagebrush and Joshua trees,

 cleansing the mind and the palate like a chilled aperitif, 

inhaling the hues of the golden-green slopes the way a bighorn sheep

savors the air for the grassy sustenance of an unseen pasture, 

innately absorbing the muted sounds of creatures too small to see, 

imploring the primordial silence of the sun’s decrescendo. 

The fractured yellow rays tint the valley floor a burnt sienna.

The sky screams a sultry red, variegated subtly in overlapping sheathes,

glowing impetuously, basting a royal corona along the mountain’s edges,

brush-stroking clouds with bursts of coppery-bronze burnish,

 before collapsing into the charcoal blackness of the desert night.

"High Desert Sunset" was created using hand carved wood embellishments salvaged from an antique "tramp art" souvenir box created in the 1920's, attached to a collage of various leathers adorned with vintage, brass leather conchos. The vintage frame is plaster cast with a magnificent oak leaf pattern.