Atlas

[Guest guest]

It is dusty and kiln-dried, mid-way through

the Northern Mountain Range.

Not a breeze stirs, and the arid hills are

stuporous in the relentless heat.

 

On the side of the road, 6 young boys

stand in my way, their hands

reaching out to me, their eyes

imploring me for

something,

anything.

 

Above them, large black birds are

lazily circling over the baking hovels

these children call home.

 

They are nomads like myself, wandering through

these hills with their shaggy goats and worn blankets,

and now these children's' eyes have impaled me.

 

I can almost see behind their eyes, and

what I see caves in my heart.

 

What I see

is the one who is seeing, and

the one who is seeing is

the one I am, and this is why

I start to weep, and why

I may not ever stop.

 

They watch me, and they weep with me,

and the hills are weeping, and yet –

it is so quiet, so very quiet.

 

Not a sound is heard, except the sound

my tears make as they splash

the hard clay at my feet –

the earth that I am –

and are swallowed up into

the invisible, the very place

I came from, the very place

my path is leading me,

even now.

 

There are some little mutt dogs by the roadside,

their tongues drooping from listless jaws,

panting, panting,

and the flies,

the omnipresent flies, and

occasional wafting hints of

dry wheat from the threshing circle

where a woman and donkey crush the harvest,

just as they have always done.

 

There is something

familiar in all of this.

 

Somehow, within that circle, I sense that

all I will ever need to understand is

just about to reveal itself.

 

After some time,

I realize that it hasn't, and

so I move on.

 

 

 

LoveAlways,

 

b