14 February 2008

A Desert

Here is something a little different from my norm, and after such a long time. Haha, I sort of forgot, I guess, about this thing that was supposed to be my 'reminder to write something every day.' Out of sight, out of mind. I got a Nintendo DS today too. I suppose I'll be out of time soon as well.

Speaking of 'out of' this line from Swinburne's At Eleusis just took me and like everything Swinburne, I ran with it. This was supposed to be an entry for something, but then I forgot about it. I probably got cold feet. Anyway, a drabble on the desert, one of my favourite subjects of all.




A Desert



                when time got wing to fly
This Hades out of summer
Swinburne



The desert was nothing like he’d expected.

He’d expected heat, just not this scorching swelter; starkness, just not this desolation; and he’d expected the strangeness of not understanding, just not this strange. The culture, language, the body language, and the constant soundtrack of traffic. He couldn’t create meaning in it.

It took three trips on camel before he understood the sand in his clothes, on the inside of his socks, in pockets he didn’t know he had, and under his arms.

Suddenly, he discerned meaning everywhere—
in each voice,
in every touch,
in the nothingness of staring at the horizon.




Also of inspirational note, but I couldn't really work it in:

Thy two wings are spread out like a falcon with thick plumage, like the hawk seen in the evening traversing the sky.

He flies who flies; this king ... flies away from you, ye mortals. He is not of the earth, he is of the sky.



:     :     :   :   :   ::   :::

No comments: