After years on the trail I could barely
Distinguish friend from enemy: they lay
Together like pebbles, immune to the seasons,
While I tramped about collecting odd remnants, ingesting
Their knowledge of knowledge. God-fearing bandits agreed
To disdain this porous earth that yields up nothing but itself
To bewildered intruders. Whispers drift
Across the sapping wastes, the clefts and lizard-like
Ridges; creepers flicker in the passing breeze; heaps
Of chalky bones reveal how some died
In their footsteps, land-hungry, scheming, at long last
Resigned. There proved no turning back, and hope
Came to seem the jaws of a lurid, furious monster
Glowering from the shadows. I notice that my right hand
Is cradling my left, and how the sky arcs
Overhead. In the distance crows wheel
Above each other in ever-shifting formations;
A glaucous haze envelops the scrub
Beyond, and seems to beckon like a vast sieve in which
I must shed my coat, my trappings, the scarf about my throat.
—Mark Ford, Harper’s, Feb. 2003
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