This paper examines how Benjamin Alire Saenz's breathtaking poem, "To the
Desert", updates the ancient
sonnet form Donne
once used to praise the Christian God and turns it into a revolutionary invocation of a pantheistic deity embodied by the
desert itself. It looks at how, through a flawless onomatopoeia that evokes the brushing and rustling and hissing sounds of the desert, he weaves sharply observant images to bring the very scent and color of the desert to the reader's mind.