The Work of Thinking, of Feeling

This is the desert.
It is a mortal, purifying place.
 
These are camels.
Only they know the hundredth name for Allah.
Sometimes their keepers dance with them.
 
This is a visitor from Boston.
Hoisted up, absurdly jouncing
for his ten minutes along the nearer dunes,
he receives, nonetheless, fervent intimations
of the transcendental.
 
These are cameleers.
They are Bedouins, the true Arabs.
Their robes make strange images in the wind.

Oliver Rice | Mudlark No. 41 (2010)
Contents | The Sly Calligrapher