The Ballad of Cappadocia
By John Herlihy

Parchment landscape from another moon,
A hand-crafted carpet here on earth,
Woven into Mother Nature’s loom.
The badlands of Cappadocia sizzle and burn,
Swept clean by the wind of Nature’s broom.
Off the beaten path in a traveler’s dreams,
Fairy chimneys thrown from heaven it seems.
Flutes and spires display an artful craft.

What are they one might plausibly ask?
Art forms on display, to say the least,
Totems from some other world, facing East.
In stately profile, tapering to great heights,
They cast eerie shadows within the light.
A queen’s headdress soaring upward,
Probing the confines of Heaven’s ward.
A toadstool crouching in the dust,
Or a double-headed hydra smelling of musk.
A child’s imagination could no doubt tell you,
What these sculptures are, totally bizarre.
These silent icons of wonder seen from afar.

Where do they come from?
And more importantly why?
Dreamy questions that noble answers imply.
There is a ballad in these badlands,
Sculpted with sensitivity by God’s hands,
That sings a melody of ancient times,
When the earth’s artifacts expressed themselves
As none other than poems of nature that rhyme.