Awake Unto Me

I've run until my breath has gone away;
the rising winds disturb the forbidding sands;
the cacti rustle with the close of day,
their blackened forms in all directions stand.
My eyes are dazed from the shimmering heat,
the lemon-gusts of sage dry out my nose;
I look around as evening, like a sheet
of darkened blue, to moonless blackness grows.
A windless rustle eerily crawls away
against horizons always past my sight...
I can't be sure now--what has come my way
could be the wind--or something from the night--
And as the darkness chills my sun-burned skin,
I sense the desert slowly closing in.