Blank Verse Sonnet #1

The desert does not want this ugly road
and so she sings the wind with low sad songs
to conjure snakes of sand to doom with dunes
that black scar of commerce on her skin.
She wages wars with ploughs and pay loaders,
the diligence of greed and lust for trade,
or restless sojourners who leave behind
the very thing they seek—unknown to them;
she wants this not! And she would have it gone!
For vast and lonely would this desert be—
a place for prophets and for scorpions;
for visions, dreams, and wonders—and for stars
to shine in this last remnant of the night
away from all our artificial light.