The Empty Quarter

    by John Canaday

    In early spring， here in the Rub 'al Khali，

    Gabriel swings his goad over the humped backs

    of swollen clouds. They roar like angry camels

    and thunder toward the fields of the fellahin.

    At night， I dream of grass so green it speaks.

    But at noon， even the dry chatter of djinn

    leaves the wadis. The sun lowers its bucket，

    though my body is the only well for miles.

    A dropped stone calls back from the bottom

    with the voice of a starving locust： Make it

    your wish， habibi， and the rain will walk

    over the dry hills of your eyes on tiptoes

    as the poppies weave themselves into a robe

    to mantle the broad shoulders of the desert.

    The words uncoil like smoke from a smothered fire，

    rising leisurely out of me as though to mark

    where a castaway has come aground at last.

    And yet I have not spoken. My voice limps

    on old bones， its legs too dry and brittle

    to leap like a barking locust into song.

    But I imagine what was said or might

    be said by some collective throat about

    the plowman loving best the raw， turned earth，

    or the caliph longing for his desert lodge，

    where ghoulem whisper like the wind at prayer，

    and poppies bow their gaudy heads toward Mecca，

    each one mumbling a different word for dust.