Mojave Poem by Drew Engman

Riding on a vanished shoreline,
Salt crust on my tongue,
I walk where ancient waters slept
And left their stories young.

Ghost mines whisper fortunes
No map has ever kept;
Coyotes laugh at prophets
Who swore the desert wept.

Men come here seeking thunder,
Or a silence sharp as bone;
Some find a burning vision,
Some find they're not alone.

I've met the sun‑struck wanderers
Who built their gospel out of sand,
Stacked stone upon conviction
With blistered, trembling hands.

Their monuments lean sideways,
Their names drift down the dune —
But the truths they carved in solitude
Still shimmer under moon.

For the desert keeps its riddles,
But it lends them now and then
To the ones who walk its crooked miles
And come back changed again.