“To travel like a bird, lightly to view | Deserts where stone gods founder in the sand, | Ocean embraced in a white sleep with land; | To escape time, always to start anew... | Hooded by a dark sense of destination... | Travelers, we're fabric of the road we go; We settle, but like feathers on time's flow.” LightDarkSleepWhiteViewsLandOceanBirdFlowStonesDesertSettlingSandDestinationFoundersFabricTravelerFeathersStarting Anew Book:The Complete Poems of C. Day Lewis Source: The Complete Poems of C. Day Lewis
“There's a belief that wherever your Ancestors took shape from the sticks and stones that formed them, that's home. Ancestors from the coast leave their mark, Ancestors from the mountains, from the desert, they all leave their mark on the genes. When you come home, the genes rejoice.” HomeBeliefShapesMountainStonesRootsMarkSticksDesertComing HomeRejoiceAncestorGenesCoastSticks And Stones Book:No Defense Source: No Defense
“In the desert, the two primary elements are stone and water. Stone comes in abundance, exposed by weathering and a lack of vegetation. It is a canvas. Water crosses this stone with such rarity and ferocity that it tells all of its secrets in the shapes left behind.” TwoLeftWaterSecretBehindsShapesElementsStonesCrossesPrimariesDesertAbundanceExposedCanvasLeft BehindRarityVegetationFerocity Author:Craig Childs
“In time they sank and decayed, and nothing is left of them except an occasional impression in stones, in stones now found in deserts and on high mountain peaks. Birdless forests block the sun in uninhabited lands. Insects swirl in the air. And then, in a majestic, bloodthirsty, and mighty heave, the spinal columns of the vertebrates rise as monstrous lizards and fabulous creatures; dragons flinging their fearful bellows up to a steaming sky... Slowly they become birds, birds as light as undreamt dreams. The searing roars become birdsong, whimpering flutes on warm nights.” DreamLightNightFoundLeftSunAirSkyLandMountainCreaturesBirdStonesWarmImpressionForestsBlockDesertDragonsFearfulFabulousInsectsOccasionalColumnsMonstrousMajesticFlutesLizardsSwirlsBirdsongMountain PeaksVertebrates Author:Erik Fosnes Hansen
“May your rivers flow without end... down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs... where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you-beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.” MayEndsDreamBeautifulNextWaitingWonderRocksStrangeWallRedFlowRiversStonesBlueAncientEndlessBarsDesertSunlightCliffsCanyonsChasmsPinnacleDomes Author:Edward Abbey
“Any idiot can build bombs. Our Trinity sits not on some desert sand seared into glass at an abandoned, sad pillar of stones. It's in our heads and our hearts, it's in our genes, this beautiful, gorgeous marriage of money, freedom and ingenuity.” HeartBeautifulStonesGlassesDesertIdiotBombsSandAbandonedGenesGorgeousIngenuityPillarsTrinityDesert Sand Author:Bill Whittle
“I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.” SoundSidesBlackWhitePathWindRiversStonesBonesDesertGrassStreamsCliffsThornsCultivationHawksChileWhistlingBeetlesEmeraldsSigns Of Life Book:In Patagonia Source: In Patagonia
“A man seeks his own destiny and no other, said the judge. Wil or nill. Any man who could discover his own fate and elect therefore some opposite course could only come at last to that selfsame reckoning at the same appointed time, for each man's destiny is as large as the world he inhabits and contains within it all opposites as well. The desert upon which so many have been broken is vast and calls for largeness of heart but it is also ultimately empty. It is hard, it is barren. Its very nature is stone.” MenWorldWellsHeartHas BeensSaidHardLastsCoursesDestinyFateJudgingBrokenStonesEmptyOppositesDesertBarrenReckoning Author:Cormac McCarthy
“The desert could not be claimed or owned — it was a piece of cloth carried by winds, never held down by stones, and given a hundred shifting names before Canterbury existed, long before battles and treaties quilted Europe and the East ... All of us, even those with European homes and children in the distance, wished to remove the clothing of our countries. It was a place of faith. We disappeared into landscape.” ChildrenLongCountryHomeNamesGivenPiecesWindBattleHundredEuropeStonesDistanceEastOur CountryDesertLandscapeRemoveClothingsShiftingTreatiesCanterbury Author:Michael Ondaatje
“I will fill myself with the desert and the sky. I will be stone and stars, unchanging and strong and safe. The desert is complete; it is spare and alone, but perfect in its soltitude. I will be the desert.” StrongStarsPerfectSkySafeStonesDesertSparesCompletenessUnchangingLoneliness And Solitude Author:Kiersten White