Neo Native – a poem by Richard West

Neo Native

They leave as soon as they have stretched
and purchased gasoline and maybe food

at truck stops on the interstate.
“It’s hot –  can we go now?” is all the children say,

confirming what they all agree –
they cannot wait to leave.

I was like them once.  I came and

smelled the heat-perspiring rocks
and saw the overwhelming sun.

Blind to arid beauty,
I could not see the desert for the sand –

the cactus for the thorn.
But as I stayed, I saw the desert’s soul unwind

in days of warm abounding light
and nights of sapphire dark,

with bright … unnumbered … myriads … of stars.
I came to see that I am of this land –

that I am also made of dust.

Richard West was Regents’ Professor of Classics in a large public university and has published numerous books, articles, and poems under his own name and other pen names. He now lives with his wife Anna in the beautiful American Desert Southwest, where he enjoys cooking and attempting to add flavor to his poems.