Qasida on the Track to Msus
Towards sundown we came out of the valley Along that track Not knowing then where it led to, when we saw The stone circles, the heaped cairns of stone, the stones Arranged like coracles on the dry slopes. The brown hills were empty. Only a buzzard Stood in the sky, perceiving its territory.
Stopping, we knew the place for an encampment Or what remained of one: the litter of pots, The broken shafts of ploughs, battered tin bowls, Sickles and shears rusting, the chattels of the living.
But there were the dead too, in those stone en- closures Laid into sand below tattered banners, marked with a stone At head and foot. For them the tents had moved on, The blanketed camels, the donkeys heaped high With panniers and vessels for water. And for us too: We had passed beyond the wells and the fresh springs Where the goats shuffled in black congregations, Beyond even the last dry Roman cistern before Msus At the end of a track we never intended to take. Behind us, the barking of dogs and the wind from the sea, Neither concerned with us nor the way south: In front, the steppes of gazelles and scorpions To be hunted or burned, for those who might venture Further into that camouflage.
But, because it was sundown, we slept there and lay Hearing the wind, watching the rising moon Above stars falling like snow through constella- tions We could not name. At dawn, we turned back Into the accustomed valley, a settled place, Going between tents and herds, yelped at by dogs, Watched by threshers and gleaners, moving among men.
And still on that hillside the ragged flags fret Over the abandoned implements and stones, And now I shall never reach Msus, Having turned back to the easy valley, while those Who were not left behind rode, I suppose, south To some name on the map I might just recognise, Or a day's ride beyond to a name I do not know.
ANTHONY THWAITE
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