Beneath a crescent Moon newborn
An inky mirror dimly glows
To show on point of her western horn
A budding blush of heartred rose.

From the still depths of welling glass
A Tuareg man on camelback floats
His way to wend through vale and pass
Of Saharan dunes and shimmering moats.

From Timbuctoo to the Red Sea port
Athwhart Aden’s shore this path I ply
Away blown through the desert court
On a breath of wind like a wildering fly.

These drifting sands crest vast above
A land where ancient savannah stood,
Whose streams below ground rush now to prove
Antiquity of native blood.

Astride spines of archaic whale 
Gaze I oft on horizon’s bar
To the spray spy and milky trail
Of worlds afire magnanimous far.

Back bear I frankincense and myrrh
From a place of quest in presence of death
Where harpies gusts of allure ride sure,
Man’s thought to catch on a whirlwind breath.

Through shimmering heat on my return
I peer to see the veiled gazelle 
Of Ibn Arabi, and silent learn 
Soul’s beauty conjures body’s spell.

Between guts and breastbone grazes she blest
With an eye that lights on finer things,
When comes to her blushing pool as guest
The nightingale who languorous sings.