CARAVAN

     The fall days.
     Earlier part of November,
     there are no leaves left...
     love withers like old trees,

     Want: staggering from face after face,
     hope after hope, into nothing.
            Reaching... whispering.
     If God is deaf, why too, the idols
                    human ears?
 

     The trial of a thousand 
     such seasons 
                             never mended...
     hurried the road toward the mountains.

             It is no good.
                   It is unended...
                           (where, when?).

     Spices and herbs dropped among the thorns.

     To be loved by,
     what so desperately was sought
             to be found... yet is never
                           met...
     always craved -- hallowed to be given.

     And winter moves         icily...
                  the sun down.

     (Camel bells tinkling in the twilight
                  past the moon.)