The arroyo rises from the ocean floor
Until the trees stand distant and the streams run dry;
Cities crumble to a siren, too faint, too high;
The continents plunge and the seas restore.
A traveler lay down to sleep
On the sandbank in the shimmering heat,
And when the waves broke over him, the stranger
Had awakened earlier and wandered from danger.
Ice plant grows in the arroyo
With thick leaves and a slow torsion;
Moored in the inevitable flow,
It instantly covers the erosion.