Essays, Art and Plays by Dan

My comment on the poem:

desert rose
the impossibility
of us both
— Ravi Kiran
 tsuri-dōrō Issue #32—March/April 2026

Introducing this poem, Dan writes:

Like a desert rose, perhaps Ravi’s life was shaped less by ease than by endurance. The desert rose is not truly a flower but a mineral formation created through evaporation, pressure, and time. For many of us, life has emerged from conditions that appeared barren on the surface: losses, uncertainties, long periods of solitude, and the slow erosion of expectations. Yet those same harsh conditions created unexpected patterns of resilience and meaning. The poem’s final lines, “the impossibility / of us both,” suggests that survival itself can feel improbable. Many, many lives, like desert roses, exist as quiet contradictions to the landscapes that formed them.