Landscape Raw Comments

The desert landscape of this poem is desolate but not hopeless. What's missing, of course, is the immediate refreshment of water for the human wanderer. The threat of hallucinations caused by dehydration is very real, so can we really trust the wanderer's words? When I wandered through the Sonoma Desert on both sides of Tucson, Arizona, I was filled with delight by the dry but intense beauty of the desert. And there's just enough relief promised in your poem (THE ANCIENT SONG, THE NIGHT DEWS, THE BLESSINGS) to make me envision a thread of hope to grasp.