White Sands, New Mexico

A beautiful austerity defines the desert

Where stark white sifts and settles beneath deep azure

Like snow that doesn't fall and doesn't melt,

But shifts about with the whim of the wind,

Reshaping the permanently ephemeral dunes

Whose sandy faces, now pocked with vestiges

Of exuberant feet,

Will appear untouched at morning,

As if erased by some magic of the night.

Julie Marie Oesper