They live on the edges, like the deer:
half in the desert, half in our world.
The desert gives them solace, and strength
wisdom and nightmare.
The city gives them gas and fits,
bad vives and urgency.
From time to time they are driven out
to eat locus and honey; to sleep on the ground,
with a rock tucked under their head
while angels haunt their dreams seeking
entry to the sterile city angels on ladders
ascending and descending bringing wisdom,
insight from the living dust of the desert.
At other times they are put out of the city
bearing the City’s sin on their own person
expiating the guilt of the city
in a miasma of heat and dust and emptiness.

Some gather under a Bodhi tree
or a fig to sing hymns of silence to that
which was and is and must always be.
Others in ecstatic trance whirl, whirl, and whirl
Embracing the other rejoicing as always
in that blessed minute the one that is now.
At all times they risk suspicion of the prince,
the censure of the temple Caesar’s cross or the
assassin’s bullet. They are enemies of the
status quo, and if not of the state then certainly
the are enemies of the Prince, and family values
and the small mind that reduce the divine to a
statement of faith Credo to an ism

Then they are gone. So suddenly and completely
That we wonder whether the had ever been
Here. We wonder if they were just figments
Of a manipulative imagination -- myths created
by church, or temple, or guru to foster their
power. But who could imagine a fakir, or
choreograph a dervish: who could prescribe
a hermit, or a monk who dares speak for a
prophet or a poet? Sh! did you hear the drum?
No it’s a pipe, or maybe it’s just the wind.
They will be back, the feral ones, in their
In their tom foolishnees and sincerity.
In truth, they newer left. Listen. It is the Wind!