Ursula Shepherd
No Words
How can I sing you the desert how can I call
and run for the moon without voice?
How can I sing you the brush of dry air
the inexorable fading of evening?
How can I settle you bring on the great night
then leave you at dawn without voice?
I ache to sing you this land to run and call for the moon
to witness together the slow fading of evening.
But I have no words to echo such splendor
no tongue can fashion the muse.
No matter desert holds to her secrets evening crawls
into night no need my whisper or singing.
So I stand stock still in the power of silence
this broad penance of wanting and pray
farewell to the light.
