The Spike: or, Victoria University College Review, June 1929
The Desert At Morning
The Desert At Morning
And the coyote yelps from the desert rim,
And the stars grow pale as the day comes on,
Barren and bare the desert free,
Stretches as though to Eternity,
Boundless and arid the desert stark
Spreads, a wilderness without mark
Save where a clump of mesquites stands,
A living touch in a lonely land,
And on the Eastern Sky there shows
A sudden light that grows and grows
Until the desert once again
Is a Hell of dust and heat that men
Still hate for its endless futile space,
Where so many disappear without trace,
And leave on some desert knoll
A few scarred bones, and a dusty skull,
All that remains of some brave fool,
Who choked out his life 'neath the blazing sun,
And left as a proof that the desert won
A few bleached bones in the sand.
—J.A.C.