I began my descent with the morning the path narrow and steep winding down from the high ridges toward the lower slopes where the land changed from stone to scrub from ice to earth The sky above was vast and clear the blue of it deep and endless the sun fierce upon my back the shadows sharp upon the ground beneath my feet The air grew warmer with each step the taste of it richer the weight of it heavy with the promise of the desert beyond

The mountains opened before me like a great gate of stone through which the world fell away in waves of rock and dust and dry riverbed I saw the land stretch far and wide beneath the sky valleys deep and shadowed hills bare and brown rivers dry and cracked beneath the sun The road that led down from the heights was rough and broken a thread worn thin by time and the passing of men and beasts and the wheels of old wagons long gone to dust

I passed through villages of stone and clay built close against the cliffs where the wind was kind and the water still ran from hidden springs The people watched me with quiet eyes faces lined by sun and years their hands quick and sure in their work their voices soft as they greeted me with bread and water with dates sweet as honey with words few but full of welcome I shared their fires beneath the stars their bread beneath the sky their stories of the land and the sky and the years that turned upon the face of the earth

The path led me down through narrow defiles where the cliffs rose sheer upon either hand where the sun came late and left early where the stones beneath my feet were worn smooth by water long gone The air grew dry the earth hard the green of the heights a memory behind me The streams ran thin and slow their voices low the taste of them sharp with the stone through which they had come The wind brought with it now the scent of dust and distant sand the breath of the desert that waited beyond the last fold of the mountain

I walked long and slow upon that road pausing often to watch the play of light upon the cliffs the flight of hawks upon the wind the slow drift of cloud across the sky I saw the lizards quick among the stones the goats that grazed upon what grass they could find the shepherds who led them with staff and dog and voice I shared the shade of their tents drank from their skins listened to their songs that spoke of water and sky of stone and storm of the long road and the wide world

One night I camped upon a ledge above a dry river where the wind moved soft and warm where the stars came early and burned bright in the darkening sky I built my fire of thorn and dry grass watched the flames rise sharp and quick listened to the night sounds the whisper of the wind the cry of an owl the soft fall of dust from the cliffs above The earth beneath me was warm with the heat of the day the air sweet with the scent of the smoke the stars near enough it seemed to touch

In the days that followed I came lower still into the lands where the mountains ended and the desert began The change was slow but sure the earth growing dry and cracked the grass sparse and thin the trees twisted and small The sun rose fierce and white upon the land the wind hot and dry upon my face the sky pale with heat and dust The villages grew fewer the wells deeper the faces of the people more lined more wary more proud Their welcome still kind but touched with caution for the desert teaches that all things are precious and not given lightly

I walked through lands where the rock turned to sand where the wind carved the cliffs into shapes strange and beautiful where the bones of the earth lay bare to the sun I followed the paths of old rivers now dry their beds wide and cracked their voices silent I found shelter where I could beneath the overhangs of stone beneath the thin shade of thorn I drank sparingly from my water kept to the path watched the sky for the sign of storm or wind

One evening as the sun fell red upon the land I came upon a great ruin half buried in the sand a city long dead its walls fallen its towers broken its stones worn by wind and time The silence of it was deep and strong and I walked among its bones with a heart full of wonder and sorrow I touched the stones carved with signs I could not read I stood in the shadow of broken columns I watched the night fall upon it and the stars rise above it and I thought of all who had lived and died there and of the years that had turned their works to dust

That night I lay upon the sand beneath the broken walls and watched the sky wheel slow and silent above me the stars cold and bright the wind soft and full of dust And I felt small beneath that vastness small and yet part of it shaped by it carried by it as the sand is carried by the wind as the stone is shaped by the rain as the years are shaped by the turning of the stars

And when the dawn came pale and quiet upon the land I rose and turned my face to the desert and began to walk