The Wahiba Sands -
Night and Morning..
At night pleased to sleep in this sandy bed
Dug in like a tribesman, a space in which to fit my hip;
And lie beneath the brilliant stars of a moonless night,
Waking in the small hours to be ravished by silence, the pale bodies of sand dunes
And a million twinkling eyes
To which I shall ever be in thrall.
Above the dark dune crest
Rising with the first light of morning
The old moon's crystal bowl,
Gigantic jewel of the eastern sky,
Wan and pale pendant of inevitable mortality,
Rises into the first pale colours of approaching dawn,
To be overwhelmed and doused
As the strengthening Eastern light
Brings in the day.
Only one sound, the panpipes of a desert lark,
A short flight upward from its dune crest lookout,
A shorter scale, a few brief notes,
Anticipating in their fragility the ensuing silence.
In the early light a family of sleek gazelle
Browses bushes growing from low pyramids of sand
Whilst above, the palest of all pallid harriers,
Sharp winged,
Glides as it hunts along a dune edge
On the eddy this drift of sand has turned
From the morning's first long breath of wind:
Not air enough to move a sand grain
But sufficient to hold this bird aloft.
Then the rising light illuminates again
Many soft forms of human limbs and breasts
Stretching in an endless wrestling mass
From horizon to horizon
Changing from moment to moment
As the speeding sun casts its moving net
Of shadows amongst them with a fierce promise
To bleach them out in the unbearable glare of white noon.
Afternoon and Evening.
In that heat the harrier has found shelter
In the cool shade of the dark trunked ghaaf tree,
To look out through its weeping bosky boughs
To the blinding light beyond,
Upon the endless repetition of artful shapes
Only slightly obscured by the sand
Borne along on the hot wind
Seduced inland from the unseen sea.
Then the wind caresses, stimulates and reforms
Its universe of limbs and torsos -
For this is the time of writhing and convulsion,
Each movement spanning years.
At evening the changing colours of the sky
Reflect upon the aeolian perfection of dunes
Sharpened by the clarity of the evening light.
Ghaaf tree - Prosopis cineraria.
Composed c 1985/7 on the Royal Geographical Society's Wahiba Sands Project.
At night pleased to sleep in this sandy bed
Dug in like a tribesman, a space in which to fit my hip;
And lie beneath the brilliant stars of a moonless night,
Waking in the small hours to be ravished by silence, the pale bodies of sand dunes
And a million twinkling eyes
To which I shall ever be in thrall.
Above the dark dune crest
Rising with the first light of morning
The old moon's crystal bowl,
Gigantic jewel of the eastern sky,
Wan and pale pendant of inevitable mortality,
Rises into the first pale colours of approaching dawn,
To be overwhelmed and doused
As the strengthening Eastern light
Brings in the day.
Only one sound, the panpipes of a desert lark,
A short flight upward from its dune crest lookout,
A shorter scale, a few brief notes,
Anticipating in their fragility the ensuing silence.
In the early light a family of sleek gazelle
Browses bushes growing from low pyramids of sand
Whilst above, the palest of all pallid harriers,
Sharp winged,
Glides as it hunts along a dune edge
On the eddy this drift of sand has turned
From the morning's first long breath of wind:
Not air enough to move a sand grain
But sufficient to hold this bird aloft.
Then the rising light illuminates again
Many soft forms of human limbs and breasts
Stretching in an endless wrestling mass
From horizon to horizon
Changing from moment to moment
As the speeding sun casts its moving net
Of shadows amongst them with a fierce promise
To bleach them out in the unbearable glare of white noon.
Afternoon and Evening.
In that heat the harrier has found shelter
In the cool shade of the dark trunked ghaaf tree,
To look out through its weeping bosky boughs
To the blinding light beyond,
Upon the endless repetition of artful shapes
Only slightly obscured by the sand
Borne along on the hot wind
Seduced inland from the unseen sea.
Then the wind caresses, stimulates and reforms
Its universe of limbs and torsos -
For this is the time of writhing and convulsion,
Each movement spanning years.
At evening the changing colours of the sky
Reflect upon the aeolian perfection of dunes
Sharpened by the clarity of the evening light.
Ghaaf tree - Prosopis cineraria.
Composed c 1985/7 on the Royal Geographical Society's Wahiba Sands Project.
General Synopsis
Here is the Shipping Forecast,
Issued at junctures horological
By the office Meteorological
Warning of violent stormy blast,
So tie the helmsman to the mast
Today, Monday, first of March.
The general synopsis issued tartly
At thirteen hundred hours sharply;
Polar low north east Atlantic,
Central pressure nine-eight-six
Is sponsored, because of ice and snow it hints
By Foxe's Glacier mints -
Moving briskly East
until it over Iceland's waters broods,
Brought to you there by Bird's Eye Frozen Foods -
-At thirteen hundred hours Tuesday.
Large anticyclone reclining
Over Luxembourg declining
One thousand and thirty nine -
All blue skies and sunshine
By that time
Sponsored by Cook's Package Tours -
So book now!
Before clouds gather and rain pours
From the cold front to the West.
Hurricane Hades from out of the Occident
Specially brought to you by General Accident
Will soon be over the Azores;
But such a vacuum nature abhors
So will fill, move east and decline
To tropical storm Proserpine
By that time
Sponsored by Fisons.
Small un-sponsored low over Lundy,
Will move slowly east through Sunday
To loose its identity - Monday.
Issued at junctures horological
By the office Meteorological
Warning of violent stormy blast,
So tie the helmsman to the mast
Today, Monday, first of March.
The general synopsis issued tartly
At thirteen hundred hours sharply;
Polar low north east Atlantic,
Central pressure nine-eight-six
Is sponsored, because of ice and snow it hints
By Foxe's Glacier mints -
Moving briskly East
until it over Iceland's waters broods,
Brought to you there by Bird's Eye Frozen Foods -
-At thirteen hundred hours Tuesday.
Large anticyclone reclining
Over Luxembourg declining
One thousand and thirty nine -
All blue skies and sunshine
By that time
Sponsored by Cook's Package Tours -
So book now!
Before clouds gather and rain pours
From the cold front to the West.
Hurricane Hades from out of the Occident
Specially brought to you by General Accident
Will soon be over the Azores;
But such a vacuum nature abhors
So will fill, move east and decline
To tropical storm Proserpine
By that time
Sponsored by Fisons.
Small un-sponsored low over Lundy,
Will move slowly east through Sunday
To loose its identity - Monday.
