Black Rock Desert

Emigrants to California thought the Black Rock route through northern Nevada would be a good shortcut. Unfortunately the trail guides had seen Black Rock during the rainy season and didn't realize the spring was seasonal.

White borax crusts
give birth to bitter dust
broken metal scoured of rust
by winds that whispered wanderlust
to travellers on uncertain trails.
Water fails. Was it last year
a waterhole was here?
Miragelike, water disappeared.
Sand and emptiness, sun-seared
cradle bleaching bones and stones, unrolling wagon wheels.
Bleaching bones on desert stones by blowing sands revealed.