should i resist the desert place?

In the Hiawatha Caves, on the trail of the Couer d'Alenes, we traveled in darkness
Pitch darkness I mean, where you can't even see your own hand held inches from your eyes.
Apparently there are creatures who live in caves so long, they lose their sight
generations later, their eyes themselves are also lost
they forget all light.

I pedaled fearful and exhilarated at once, praising a journey that can survive such darkness,
triply grateful for every ray of liquid gold on my skin, shining intervals between the deep
brownness that won't last.

Now in fuller sleep than I've had in months, piecemeal dreams still hover, uninterpretable:
Central American highways and roadside carcasses,
old pick-up trucks and exotic vines,
thousands of miles away from you
dry leaves of a thin reconciliation blown by dusty wind,
but mostly the heavy separation.

Riding through ghost towns, worn brick buildings, decaying into alpine fir,
I listened to the stories of the 1910 forest fire--the one that started in Montana and burned so far west
of train passengers waiting in tunnels for weeks,
water dripping down in the cool blackness
Of animals running to the caves,
a mama bird roasted with her wings spread over her babies,
found still crying and alive:
Love's recognizable silver paint.

There are a hundred pairs of thirsty eyes,
but yours are the ones that haunt my life.