THE GHOSTS OF WADI-HAFAR
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Before there was poetry

There were drums; thin sticks

Played like one string

Vibrating violins haunting

When once the Sahara

Was a soggy crocodile

Infested bog, and rhinos

Charged the fires of

Drunken nomads and half

Naked swimmers, artists who

Had perhaps contemplated poetry

But in primitive fits of

Calculated desperation and trance

Resorted to chipping rocks

And painting caverns in oddly

Modern dried blood ballets

Stylistic visions of beings

So strange as to appear

From other worlds, heads

Like exploding tulips full

Of tiny stars, which forces

One to wonder, what were they

Thinking, knowing, before

The drums told them the rains

Would vanish, the sands would

Shift, and cover here forever

Leaving only these paintings,

Specters carved by phantom hands

From a time before time was

Born, before the drummers knew

Before there was poetry.



Richard Arthur Love 5/22/99