Moab's Hills

        All the hills
        in a prophet's eye...

        In our Land Rover,
        we leave the low, flat landscape
        that holds the shimmering Salt Sea.
        
        The smooth straight road
        reaches up into the mountains,
        where it wraps itself tightly
        into curves following contours.
        Knolls rush up at us only to fall
        sharply away, arising as other hills
        farther on, farther up emerge,
        both steeper and softer.

        Eyes scan across yet another
        canyon as we careen,
        always on edge; and suddenly-
        huge faces in the rock emerge,
        like Mount Rushmore,
        but no man-made chisel carved
        the stunning contour of features
        set to emanate from the avalanche of time-
        the avalanche of fluent rock erosion,
        staring back at me.
        
        Craggy, weather worn, furrowed faces
        watching with eyes that are nimble shadows-
        shelves and slants and surface
        gnawed by time and tale.
        The road leaps sharply up and
                                        

        I look down deep rocky
        chasms, that approach
        with lurch and loom
        and sloping plateaus
        sprigged with stony pasture:
 
        Each relatively level patch
        bears one lone shepherd-
        Bedouin robes draping him
        with historical allusions.
        
        Black rocks become a tumble of goats.
        White stone stubble...browsing sheep.
        Height-depth-dark-light-
        nothing seems anything
        except ancient.

        Even recent excavations
        (crude surface mining)
        has the appearance
        of an archaeologist's mound
        divulging treasure;
        gnawed by time and tale.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

Sand Bottles

  

                             There are
                                more
                               colors
                               of sand
                               in little
                               dishes
                                than I
                               thought
                          possible. From
                         the white I know
                       so well through the
                       pinks  and  oranges
                      and reds I'm learning,
                    to the browns I believed
                 in before I came, to black.
              He takes a pinch of dark brown,
            drops it in a narrow necked bottle
         on a tan layer already poured on top
        of light brown one.    His dark head is
       bowed over his work and he reaches in
      the bottle  with a wire,  touches the sand
      pushes gently, pulls, releases and a camel
     prances on a desert landscape. It only took
      a few seconds and he repeats it all around
     etching a caravan of camels prancing. With
    dark fingers he tweaks up a color from a little
     dish, pours another shade and another, pokes
      with his thin wire patterns in the sand like
         a  starry night-  and he packs it tightly
            compressing the picture and plugs
             it shut with a soft waxy substance
          that hardens and we have a splendid
       little memento that fits firmly in my hand.

 poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

 

Evening's Drowse

           
        I am filled with-
        shaped by
        the hills.

        They smooth my thoughts
        as each rise leads
        to another
        stretching

        as I soar
        like the sparrow
        my mind capturing image
        after image
        of what we've seen.

        Old hills...

        Black specks become goats
        a stick a shepherd on watch.

        Stones take the shape of sheep
        and sheep take the shape of stones.

        Some hills haven't a speck of green
        just crevices
        that make them look like drapery
        sculpted mounds
        modern art

        then drive down
        and discover other hills
        with dark green conifers-

        old old trees with space underneath
        their lowest oldest branches
        primeval shelter...
        
        Would I see the land the same
        if my pace were constrained to what legs can do-
        
        how far the foot can stumble.    

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab