Saturday, September 16, 2006

#146: September 16, 2006

I can't forget that night among the Tombs:
exhausted from a day pressing the sands
with blistered feet, my wind-raw face and hands
sun-cooked, and lacking any other rooms
I fell down in the shadows of the stones,
longer each moment. I ignored the words
etched in that sand-worn rock. Some carrion birds
who perched nearby scrabbled for ancient bones.

And whether in my fitful desert dreams
or else in truth, all night I heard a voice
like thunder down a well, that roared in pain
or vicious anger--such inhuman screams
I might well have gone mad, had not the noise
stopped like a breath once sunlight shone again.

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