If I'M Still Here In August Poem by Juan Olivarez

If I'm still here in August,
Then it will be too late.
I'll never walk in the arid lands,
That someone else, controls my fate.

If I'm still here, then I'll know,
I will have missed my ride.
That my dream of the Mojave,
Just withered up and died.

And I don't know what will become,
Of me if I can't return.
If I can't see white mountain tops,
Or walk on sands that burn.

I'll know by then that all my prayers,
Must have surely been in vain.
And I couldn't return, to the golden west,
To the place it never rains.

But I'll always remember in my heart,
The desert where I once roamed.
And know deep down inside my soul,
That that's where I belonged.

5/13/11 Alton Texas