Observations on Spirituality in the Desert as Prompted by a Poem I Read Today

"...Yet something that is neither sand nor stone/
Nor blazing sun nor sprawling toppled rim/
Of distant mountains, something vast and dim/
Broods on this desert, silent and alone,/
And is within me, is the interim/
Between the wasting rock and wasting bone."
~an excerpt from "The Desert", a sonnet by Arthur Sampley

It seems to me that the desert is free from some vast divide between us and whatever it is that forms life and thought and love. We are stripped bare of our pretenses and masks and curtains in the desert, the things that separate us from God and men.
I believe this 'God' exists everywhere and anywhere, unconfined to temples or churches or holy places, though those are made holy because god is easier to hear there. But when you are among men, god is hard to hear, hard to feel. You have to listen closely, you have to make an effort; you must have time.
In the desert, none of this is a problem, though you may not, you feel like you have all the time in the world. God is loud and easy to hear, and comes freely in a way which is easy to notice.
Vast, beautiful, uninhabited, that which brings you closer to the universe and that force within and all around you.