UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

merin15@hotmail.com

August

Crows raged in tree-tops. The star-leashed stillness of dawn
Shattered by winged rover, as gales of blatant cry reeled
Through untamed bough and leaf, and moss-painted pane,
And troubled his dreams with the spell of the fields.

And the frosty stars of daybreak tear the earth from veils of night,
The rambling soil and the drowsy cricket’s whistle borne
Into his soul. He synthesized the million shades of land and sky
In a fleeting glimpse, upon the wings of a vagrant blue morn.

And he sights no blot of fence, or turnpike, or road
Which would steer him on to dismal knots of towns ..
Of clattering lines of cars, gray-tinted clouds of smoke,
Far from rings of limpid blue spilled across parched brown.

Green ravaged the land. None would have supposed
That concrete and highway lay just a mile beyond,
For here were leagues of rice that rippled in sunbeam,
The scent of dark earth, breeze warm and vagabond.

And he who romped past bug and dryad in the blaze of fields,
And strove to snare the virgin crop into emerald symmetry,
Has melted into another world, of post and pavement, when time
Erased boundless fields and sunlit stalks off the keel of memory. 

All Rights Reserved. Printed By Permission.