Intimations of a Desert

Priscilla Samuel
I B.A. English
Holy Cross College
Nagercoil
priscillasamuel9102004@gmail.com

O kingdom, spread barren beyond the seamless horizon
Dearth of shades of green, leaving impetuous cruisers aghast
Amongst your illuminating, ever drifting, shape-shifting maze,
Your canvas of delicate creases, glittering heaps of futile gold
Radiant under the searing heat of obdurate heavens, long odd
Long there, long gathering what has been lost; once was one
Then another, like the intricate labyrinth of indecisive thoughts
Lying splendid yet too infernal, too frigid, too epic to be kind;
The morphing dunes of time begetting anguish and yielding awe,
For how it dissipates man’s sanity if he is heedless of his mark.

O kingdom, stretched far like a massive dusty-arid cloak
What fatal curse hardened your heart till it was nothing but this,
A desolate cradle of the dead, a tomb of slayed pride, a beast
Un-quenched of thirst, shimmering brilliant yet brutish to prey;
Mirage, mirage, there shivers away, the closer…the farther;
A little further…a little more further till a dark tide sweeps away;
How fine the stinging wind whispers a blank dirge as it inters,
And the torridity melts down the flesh from the touch of the bones
O! How you mock the pride of man, the depth of his thirsting mind
His petty wants, the triviality of his existence, he tries to refute.

O kingdom, testing patience, trying wits till it is lost
In the fiery heat of the day and in the bitter cold of the night
Amongst the wilting skulls of beasts, by the rivers that ceased flow;
Yonder lies a tale buried, yet another devoured by your appetite
A hostile scorn that declares how age dries up the spring of youth
And how years can wither away the charm that is seldom told
Gloomy shadows, lifeless in themselves, abiding by the decrees of time
Too radiant, too blinding that darkness consumes what is seen
And the paucity of verdant valleys and the scantiness of floral-spice
Shades your rough yet delicate expanse with desertic tones.

O kingdom, desperate yet amassing hope someplace, remote
To sustain what is left, what more lies that never seek to desert
The infernal heat from the heavens may have caused vast ruins
Yet life remains still in hope for another day, for another breath
Till at last, pass; though you may doubt the resilience of beings
It is you, O land, the portrayer of the accustomed course of life,
Who taught us to thrive through different elements of strive
To bear the bitter, to savour the sweet, to fight and never yield
To quest for the lost, the hidden, the unknown, till it is known.

O kingdom, your harsh reprimands make you, not a tyrant
For through the sturdiness of your heart, have life strong evolved;
What you entomb is what is sought: life, love, your lost green
And your forgotten fondness that peeps through the cracks
Of your broken heart, sparing mercy in meagre degrees
Preaching how life can sparingly be simple, seldom a breeze
O behold! The creatures crawl, stride, rattle, circle and idle
On the droughty land of things, under the menacing heavens;
Life arrives, it departs, yet it has always remained blooming
blooming like a flower, ever so wild.

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