Miles of sand! — Miles of heat! — Soil effete! — Pine trees only!

Grist for a saw mill, a paper mill, a turpentine still!

Past the weeks when a tiny breeze

Blew dust from trees: nature’s plan,

Enough to fertilize the land itself.

Pine tops sweep the air; unreal

To cool by sound and not by feel.

Sol, relentless, glowers down

On sage grass, dry and flaky brown;

On grasshoppers, too-long baked and sere

To leap away when I come near.

The heatest, hottest time of day is

Appealing in a lonely way;

Strangely silent and undewed;

Desolate beauty;

Solitude.

Paul W. Doster

LaGrange