Sirocco

Sirocco

A hot dry wind is blowing from the desert sands,
I am not concerned,
I have life in my hands.
I do not hear it's whipping hoops
as it approaches around stone corners.
A hot harsh spitting sand is flying now,
flying around my ankles,
under the embroidery of my skirt,
biting my flesh.
I don't care.
"Give it your best shot",
I whisper to the wind,
as if it was a child throwing horse shoes at a pin.
I've seen you before,
out on the open plains,
when time was young and I was but a lover with a wild horse.
You don't remember, of course,
but there was a time when wild elephant roamed
and we were dancing in the long grass.
Ah, yes, your little dust storm, how did it go?
A hot dry desert wind is destroying my tents,
swinging the palms of my Oasis wide across the pool.
Am I listening ?
Was I listening then,
when you said we needed to go ?
we needed to find a place to shelter and water for the horses.
No, my love, I wasn't listening.
This wind, spitting, howling, chilling with its heat,
something only a desert knows;
It claims my mother,
aimlessly wandering out to feed her chickens,
I begin to look.
It claims my children,
innocently playing in the sand,
I'm looking now.
My husband falls from his camel into dust pools
I stare at his body.
All right, sweet one, you have my attention.
Your eyes like flying sand,
your fingers long and outstretched towards my heart.
I know, I can wait no longer.
I wrap my face in silken sheets and bury my dead
I run down the back stairs with fear in my arms,
If only I could remember your name.
I'm heading North with you pursuing my dreams.
North to a summer sun that will play duets upon the water,
I've got this picture in my mind,
way beyond the dust, of sunsets and calm.
When night falls you have found me at the water's edge
and I wonder why you have stopped howling and spitting.
Now that you have taken all I loved,
you sit beside me,
like a young girl who led her horse across the plains,
Gently now, she holds the reins.
How could I have forgotten you,
Sirocco,
You were always the wild wind and the desert sand,
the dancer,
when I was but a lover with a dream ?