-Walking along a ridge of white sand-
it's cooler below the surface-
we stop and, gazing at an expanse
of dunes to the west,
watch a yellow yolk of sun drop to the mountains-

an hour earlier, we rolled down a dune,
white sand flecked your eyelids and hair-

a claret cup cactus blooms,
and soaptree yuccas
move as a dune moves-

so many years later, on a coast, waves rolling to shore,
wave after wave,

I see how our lives have unfolded,
a sheen of
wave after whitening wave-

and we are stepping barefoot,
rolling down a dune, white flecks on our lips,

on our eyelids: we are lying in a warm dune
as a full moon
lifts against an ocean of sky-

About This Poem
"White Sands, in southern New Mexico, is the site of the world's largest gypsum dune field. In summer, the sunlight can be blinding; the temperature can rise to over 100 degrees. At sunset, when the sand is cooling, it is marvelous to walk along a ridge, and I've used this physical edge to explore memory and desire."
-Arthur Sze

About Arthur Sze
Arthur Sze is the author of "Compass Rose" (Copper Canyon Press, 2014). He is a professor emeritus at the Institute of American Indian Arts and lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.


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The Academy of American Poets is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization, whose aim is to make poetry available to a wider audience. Email The Academy at poem-a-day[at]poets.org.


(c) 2016 Arthur Sze. Originally published in Poem-a-Day, www.poets.org. Distributed by King Features Syndicate