Dark and Soothe

The long dry wadi snakes through the desert.

The thirst of the parched pebbles along the meandering Is only slaked by undulating waves of silent mirage. Corillian golds and the deep violets At the edges of distant mountains No longer interest me: they belong to the sky; not to me. Once, beyond the horizon of memory,

My body spoke to the luscious cold flow Of water from rocks high above.

As it spoke to the fragments of mist light

As it once spoke to the temptations of young women.

Now my body speaks to nothing;

It only dreams of dark and soothe

And drinks the moistness of slow scorpions.