Desert Dweller

Is it real or a product of ego?

Is the fear I feel, fear of loneliness,
fear of the pain of connection
or rather, fear of the 
inevitable separation?

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 120/365.

Everything you love will be lost.

Change is inevitable for growth. 
Embrace it, shift pain
into wonder and love.

Create the connection consciously
and with intention.

In the end, love always returns
in a different form.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 119/365.

Desert hikes are
a sacred passage—
or a gauntlet.

Desiccating winds
searing heat
freezing nights
drowning rains.

Insects that buzz and sting,
birds that hover and hum,
or circle,
ominously searching
for the dead and dying.

Desert visitors may not enter
without blood sacrifice.
Plants armed with
spears, hooks and barbs
grab, poke, scratch,
as if saying
“all who pass must do penance”.

The reward for travelers who endure:
stark moonlit landscapes,
velvet star-studded skies,
coyote song,
solitude and serenity.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 118/365.

Behind desert sandstone
lie coiled secrets of serpent wisdom
drawing attention and advising caution.

Insects that buzz and sting,
birds that hover and hum allied 
with cacti and shrubs,
armed with spears, hooks and barbs,
warning: “all who enter must do penance.
No one shall pass without blood sacrifice,”

Weary wanderers,
wary of each hiss and rattle,
clumsily navigate invisible paths 
seeking the well of enlightenment, unaware
that serpentine paths may mis-lead
towards the trail of temptation and torment,
and end on the road to madness.

Creatures in the dry lands bite or sting
outlanders who moan and groan about
sunburn blisters, suicide itch, and unrelenting thirst,
while their hunger for answers remains unsatisfied.

They progress slowly, 
painfully unaware
that the questions they ask are unanswerable 
and their quest takes place in a region
that offers no solutions,
only challenges.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico 
Stafford challenge 117/365.

Sunrise,
justification 
to watch the day unfold.

Sunset
justification 
to snuggle.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 116/365.

The knowledge
that really matters in life
is how to purify water,
how to grow food,
how to cook and how to build. 

We’re not taught
any of that in school.

I need a home,
a safe place where my seeds
take root and become.

Neither stars nor desert
serve physical needs,
but I also need sunsets,
the Milky Way above
and vast desert spaces.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 115/365.

Hornless stag.
Thornless rose
Beyond the grave,
only the soul can go.

Formless void.
Stormless sea
Gravity the only guide,
rainbows the only landmarks.

Aimless sailor
without chart or sextant, adrift rudderless.
Helplessly headed
toward the X on every human map,
toward the destiny of every life:
the grave.

The grave, doorway to the unknown
a burrow, a tunnel,
express train to the underworld.

Beyond the grave,
the sea, the vast sea of limitless knowledge, 
boundless sea of eternal love.
Only the soul can go 
where mind and body cannot. 

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 114/365

violent splashing
crowded undersized birdbath 
fine feathers flocking

© 2025 Bruno Talerico 
Stafford challenge 113/365

If we want to be exceptional,

we have to do exceptional things.


There is no nobility in being miserable.

No one gains from negative stories.

Being unhappy doesn’t help the world.

All growth begins with change.


Even when things seem to be falling apart,

they are changing, making room for growth.


Let go.

Stop trying to force outcomes

Surrender.

Fully accept each moment as it is.


After surrender, the moment

no longer has power over us.


In the moment we realize that

the external world has no power

over our internal state, we are free.


After we accept and love what is,

we can take appropriate action.


To change the world,

be the one with vision,

the one who sees setbacks

as challenges, opportunities,

interesting experiences or steppingstones.


Let’s allow joy

to take the place of pain.

Let’s do exceptional things.


© 2025 Bruno Talerico 

Stafford challenge 112/365

in a foreign land
seeking opportunity,
offering labor and skill,
hoping for kindness.

Instead,
reviled, dehumanized,
confronted by anger,
threatened with
hatred and violence.

We live in the prison of conformity,
separated by screens and pixels,
barricaded behind walls
of glass and concrete,
while homeless people shiver
outside our closed doors.

Jesus and Siddhartha
rejected frames of normalcy,
forgoing earthly attachment,
challenging the status quo,
choosing instead
to heal the sick, feed the poor,
comfort the weak, empower the downtrodden.

Prophets will not be found
in church, temple, mosque, or synagogue.
They are not residing in the great beyond,
longing to hear your self-serving prayer.
They are too busy for such luxury.

Gods are busy here on Earth,
busy holding hands of the rejected,
outside, on the street, in the alley, at the camps.
Busy breaking bread with outcasts,
enjoying songs and dance with misfits.
They are busy blessing
those disadvantaged souls
who are unwelcome at your table.

While you are busy
working to pay for what you don’t really need,
while you are busy
shopping for the latest fashion,
while you are busy
sitting in your fortress, watching reality television,
Gods and prophets are busy
making a difference.

© 2025 Bruno Talerico  
Stafford challenge 111/365.