The land was a place of change the last stones of the mountains falling away into low hills of dust and scrub the earth cracked and bare the trees fewer and smaller their branches twisted by the wind and the hunger of the sun The air was dry and clear filled with the scent of dust and thorn and the faint sweetness of distant blossom The sky arched wide above empty of cloud empty of bird empty of all but the endless light of the sun that climbed higher with each passing hour

I walked upon a path barely marked a track followed by those who came this way before by caravans and wanderers by traders and seekers and lost souls The prints of their passing had been half claimed by the wind by the slow fall of dust by the drift of sand that began here at the border of the great desert The wind came now stronger from the east carrying with it the taste of the sands that lay ahead and the sound of the emptiness that waited there

By midday the heat was fierce the sun white and merciless above the sky pale and hard and the earth beneath my feet hot and cracked The land rolled out before me in waves of dust and stone and thorn the air shimmering with heat the distance blurred by the dance of the rising air I found shade where I could beneath the lean of a rock beneath the sparse branches of a thorn tree and drank sparingly from my water watching as the shadows moved slow upon the land

In the afternoon I came upon a small camp a place where a group of desert folk had made their home for a time their tents low and dark their camels resting in the thin shade of the tents their fires small and hot and made of thorn and dung The men watched me as I approached their faces marked by sun and wind their eyes sharp and wary their hands close to their belts where knife and staff lay ready But when I greeted them in peace they welcomed me offered me water cool from their skins dates sweet and dark tea bitter and strong with herbs that grew in the high places

We sat together beneath the shade of their tents as the heat of the day passed they spoke to me of the desert of the wells hidden beneath the sands of the storms that rose swift and fierce of the stars that guided them upon the endless sea of sand of the dangers that lay upon the path of the beauty that lived in the heart of the emptiness They told of caravans lost to the storm of oases that gave life to the weary of the ways of the wind and the sun and the sky And I listened with a heart open to the wisdom of those who had walked this land since the first dawn

As evening came the light changed softening from the harsh white of the day to the gold and rose of sunset the sky painted in colors that seemed to burn upon the edge of night The wind moved slow and warm upon the land carrying with it the cool promise of the night the breath of the sands the song of the empty places The stars came early bright and clear upon the darkening sky the moon a thin silver curve above the horizon The desert lay wide and silent beneath their light a sea of shadow and pale sand a place where the earth and sky met in quiet wonder

I lay that night upon the sand beside their fire the warmth of it upon my face the scent of it in my breath and watched the heavens wheel above me the stars bright and near the wind soft and filled with the voice of the night I felt the peace of the desert the vastness of it the strength of it the gift of it that asked nothing and gave all The earth beneath me was warm the sky above endless the night filled with the deep silence of the empty places

In the days that followed I walked deeper into the desert leaving behind the last stones of the mountains the last scrub and thorn and grass The sands began here pale and fine and endless the dunes rising like waves upon a sea of gold the wind carving their shapes with hands unseen The sun rose fierce upon the land the sky white and hard above the heat rising in waves from the sand The wind sang soft among the dunes lifting the sand in veils that danced upon the air that stung the skin that blurred the path

I walked in the morning and in the evening resting through the heat of the day in the shade of my cloak in the shelter of the dunes I drank sparingly from my water listened to the voice of the wind watched the play of light and shadow upon the sand I came upon the tracks of fox and snake and beetle upon the sand the prints of birds that had passed in the cool of the night I watched the flight of hawks high upon the sky their shadows swift upon the dunes I listened to the voice of the night to the song of the wind to the silence that lay deep upon the land

Each evening I built my small fire of thorn and dry grass watched the flames rise bright and quick listened to the night as it fell upon the land watched the stars come bright above the darkening dunes The moon rose white and cold upon the land and the wind moved soft among the sands carrying with it the breath of the night the scent of the empty places the song of the far horizons And I lay upon the sand with the sky above me the earth beneath me the desert around me and felt at one with the world