Colors of Dust- old poems by Anne Selden Annab: desert

Showing posts with label desert. Show all posts

Saturday, January 22, 2022

Wander Gently

           Wander Gently

       Wander gently
       through a Spring meadow
        in a desert land.

       Cherish a brief blossoming
       from the brilliant red poppy
       to each tiny, delicate, sunlit star and
       Purple thistles, blue flax, pinkish roses, all
       come bursting from rock
       and earth
       and everywhere
       where a seed might stray
       there is bloom.

Jerusalem

        Jerusalem- (No turnoff from our lane
       as we drive on a desert road).

       All armies have invaded-
       no creed
       no holy word
       has been left unscathed
       in this exalted city
       of a thousand centuries.

       Perhaps if I had walked
       the Via Dolorosa,
       or if I had touched
       the Wailing Wall,
       or entered
       the Dome Of The Rock,
       perhaps I too
       would be imbued
       to thrash God's will
       about on others,
       to extol my ancestor's way-
       their course and curse.

       Perhaps if my husband
       were less a man
       less a lover
       less a friend
       less a father to our sons
       I'd turn to you and yell
       screaming all my own insanities
       arguing with all my angst
       about infidels
       barbarians
       filth...
       I'd soil your city
       with the expectations
       of jealous rage
       and zealotry
       and claim you
       as a narrow place;
       no room for anything but
       my own ideology.

       Perhaps if my childhood
       had been worse,
       I'd come quivering to you
       expecting God.

       But all I have
       are books to lead me
       through your streets,
       temples, chapels,
       even into a mosque...

       It's the wildflowers
       on the hills east
       of the river Jordan
       that claim my spirit's calm,
       swilling me with inspiration

       the open air
       and the bluest sky.

       The kindness of in-laws...

       Jerusalem
       perhaps some day
       I'll come to you,
       when the Holy Trinity shifts and settles
       and is equally of Moslem, Christian, Jew-
       And from that pinnacle,
       pierced by all our empathy,
       I'll be able to walk your streets...

       Perhaps someday
       Jerusalem,
       God's claim
       will barricade
       people's hearts
       from hate and bigotry:
       To make a place
       to abide in peace... Yerushalayim.

Colors Of Dust

       Colors of Dust,
       of gloom and glow-
       Colors of dirt and rock
             and centuries
       of stumbling
       looking skyward.

       How the stars must
               have figured,
       sharply delineating direction
       amid these softly mounded
       mountains that
       crumble
       with pebbles
       and goat turd.

       The Bedouin tents are pitched
       Huge woolly rooms
       swaged to keep out
               sun
           wind
       eyes

       watching us
       zoom past.

The Craft's Souk

       There's a glass blower.
       The solid daub ledge
       holds a cotillion
       of green and blue glass-
       breakable shapes spun
       as he blows and pulls and dips
       and spills and whips and drops

and pulls

a
                              cobra

       from liquid glass dripping and twirled.

       The hot furnace
       is a nest of orange red
       in the dusky room.
       Night is outside
       and we stand near enough
       to be warmed by the stove.
       Desert nights can be colder
       than you think.

       I hold the youngest child,
       and feel him twitch and twist
       as the glass blower   moves
       with arms stretched up and out suspending
                               red glass

       that drops into a iridescent swan.

Published Harrisburg Review 1998

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.

Friday, January 21, 2022

Sunset

       The sun doesn't
           sink slowly.
       It drops suddenly
       as if pulled
       by an unseen hand.

       A grasping grip
       afraid to come up
       beyond the horizon

       waiting

       as the yellow disc
       up above comes
       closer,

       taking dusk
       and turning it
       into a passionate
       red-orange.

       When the edge
       of the round red sun
       has slipped past a certain
        point on the landscape's edge
       the unseen hand grabs it
       pulls-

        The sun plunges down
       immediately
       dropped
       away.

       Gray light lingers a bit longer
       fingering the last threads of dusk.

Write Lightly

        Write lightly
        as the wildflowers do,
        becoming
        their own bouquets:
        The land a lovely lady
        so delicate,
        step closely to the earth
        ankles touched by bloom
        and eyes downcast, delight
        little blue bloom
        cradles a star flicker.

        Red poppies with
        papery purpose
        daze the heart
        as they cluster
        like congregations
        to singe the air
        with brilliant
        fresh blood
        flame red
        soft petal.

        I am in silk
        inspired by
        the small flowers
        touched by
        their gentle
        tenaciousness,
        tucked into rocks
        everywhere
        and flowing out
        into fields.

        They are of every hue
        though the wild mustard
        shouts and sways
        and seems to push
        all else aside
        with it's flamboyance.

        But the it’s
        the little bouquets
        found everywhere
        underfoot,
        splays of delight,
        that catch my eye.
        Floral mosaics.

        Everywhere
        there is garden
        herb and flower flourish-
        a brief enchantment
        in a desert land
        that soon enough
        will be all browns
        brushed with bare earth.

Published- Poets Paper, Summer 1998 Issue, Anderie Poetry Press

En'Shallah

Shivering,
stand in wet snow
       listening to thunder,
       as sleet melts
       into rainfall

The sun's glinting light
       pulls forth a pretty posy
here and there
       until barrages of bloom
rupture the earth.

Day after day of bloom bursting...

And the deep indigo
       of an oriental night
       is beautifully fragrant
with jasmine.

       By day the desert heat
       comes back
       to claim all color,
       washing the hills
with brown stubble
       which the goats will graze to aught.

                      Presume, as you stand on barren stone
       that soon enough, next spring-

       En'Shallah...

       This rock ledge will once again
       brim
       with flowers
       and a crumbling castle
       will be a thousand urns
       of growth.