Barefoot Desert

Poetry
Written By Amanda Barusch

Through luminous contrasts of cold mountain shadow and desert warmth, Barefoot Desert explores memory, escape, and longing. It was published in Stone Path Review.

  • Type – poem

  • Publication / Venue – Stone Path Review

  • Publisher – Stone Path Review

  • Publication date – October 16, 2014

  • Format(s) – PDF, print

  • Available at – Stone Path Review issue; PDF

  • About this work – A brief, image-rich poem that moves between cold mountain shadow and desert warmth. Through spare, luminous imagery, it evokes escape, memory, and the pull toward a freer, sunlit place.

Barefoot Desert
Amanda Barusch

  • Morning clouds flame but the cold hills

    insist on shadow. Faces of indigo stone

    clutch the snow in their creases. A child’s feet could still

    warm the earth, wake the meadow, and know

    the path of each skylit memory. Instead, she will

    tiptoe away from the dark mountain frown

    to dance barefoot in the desert sun

    and share honey dates with a black-necked swan.

Amanda Barusch

Amanda Barusch has worked as a janitor, exotic dancer, editor, and college professor. She lives in the American West, where she spends as much time as possible on dirt paths. She has an abiding disdain for boundaries and adores ambiguity. Amanda has published eight books of non-fiction, a few poems, and a growing number of short stories. Aging Angry is her first work of creative non-fiction. She uses magical realism to explore deep truths of the human experience in this ever-changing world.

https://www.amandabarusch.com
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