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

 

Petra

        Our little boys like
        camel rides
        and scramble climbing on ancient ruins.
        So many places to ramble...

        So beautiful, especially
        the spring flowers
        that grow everywhere,
        even out of rock and
        Roman ruins.
        
        History is everywhere you look
        and our little boys like
        fiddling with stones:
        They fill their pockets.
        
        Outside the Grand Treasury that rises
        from rosy shades of sandstone
        into a precisely carved edifice
        of aesthetic sensitivity unsurpassed...

        Our little boys glance up briefly
        and then browse back at the ground,
        eyes absorbed in the trove of little stones-
        eager little hands
        clutch
        all they can.

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab

To ride a camel

        To ride a camel
        is to smile and nod
        at the bedecked Bedouin
        and his equally bedecked beast:
       
You signal with a coin
        and he signals with a stick
        and the great beast bends his knees backwards
        settling to the ground in a most unsettling way.

        You reach up with your leg
            over the camel's steep back,
        and hurl yourself astride-

        Hold on, eyes blaring and nose blinking
                                       as the mountainous beast lunges forward                 

 then back 

                    and up 

                                            and all at once and you are higher
                    than any head
                    and your heart is pounding
                    pounding pounding
                    from the unexpected shift
                    that seemed more like a spill-

        And what's most frightening
is knowing that getting down
        will be exceptionally more disconcerting.
               

poem copyright ©2000 Anne Selden Annab