The desert is all kinds of crazy as you stop the car and look out among the Big Empty, the enchantress (alias the sun) beats down with the power and grace of a street-cleaner, and if you can't find happiness in the bright sauna, you might find it underneath the ancient stones, lizards pumping iron in the sun, and you're breathless in the absolute silence.
A mirage appears, out in the salt flats. A woman dances, she's a gypsy you know, the desert flowers droop among the yucca plants and joshua trees. She's beating a tambourine and you're in a trance, you want need the grace she promises in her steps. Next thing you know you're stumbling out toward her, sunburn starting to take its toll on your arms and nose, the sun makes your body scream but the tambourine breaks the insufferable silence and your throat parches before the mighty arid mountains, thirty or forty miles on the horizon.
You're a hundred yards from the car before you turn around and realize that you've been walking this whole time. She smiles at you, has to be a mile out in the wastelands, you want need her grace. Freedom is close in the desert wind.
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