Death Valley Poem by Chas Weeden

What lives deep within?
Which thoughts, what vitality?
For from these must we emerge,
As there is little without
Except the baleful wind
Whining across bleached dunes.

Death is a void of expression
Stark, barren, arid.
Mere rocks scoured by flash flood
Twisted and gnarled;
Gravestones of salt extrusion
From emergent times.

What life there is in Death Valley
Lives underground and waits
For night or brief rain;
But then it must express
Whatever it is, for death
Is to fail to come forth.

There are two deaths
In Death Valley:
The first is not to emerge
When that moment comes,
The second is that there is
Nothing to emerge.