awe of arrakis
* For Frank Herbert and that little paperback book I pulled off the prep school library shelves fifty-three years ago - that, along with Asimov’s ‘Pebble in the Sky’ and Clarke’s ‘Childhood’s End’, literally changed my life. *
~
footfalls …
soft in the desert
like a savior on the sea
or a waxwing on whispers
the dunes carry me
quiet and quick
with only plodding pocks to betray
or cursive glyphs attesting ‘the walk’ …
the sands are my trundle -
drifts, my pillow
keeper of all dreams
but with twilight come the tempters -
the jinn …
to tickle my ears with
ballads, beguiling
astucious stories meant to
leaven the loins …
but falsehoods are falsehoods
no matter their smile
I bury them in the morning
with my leavings
and bid them to the spiders …
tossed like flotsam on
an endless ocean of sand and dust
I have drowned in the deep of
it’s chill gloaming
and awakened to the
shy dance of a binary sunrise …
but now -
now the barrens are bleeding
I see the red gold dazzled in the
bright of two suns
(and the edacious eyes of men) -
midday occlusion swinging from south-to-north
like a two-headed axe dividing the
desolation and the bounty, bled
every gust stirring both -
reminding me just how trivial I am
and how precious my gaze …
if only my veins coursed with
such rare color
I would paint the day with crimson
and end it with indigo …
I would bury the melange in a tomb of time
unkept and unknown
and the sacred source would return this
hot hell to a boon of
beryl breath and fronded fealty -
hearkening the Gardens of Semiramis
the only prize worthy a
king or consort …
or even the spice-bringers themselves -
the great and gargantuan
the origin and the age
the bane and the
blessed beastly bosom …
Shai-Hulud.
Copyright © 2025 Gregory Richard Barden
( photographic art created copyright free by the author with Gala AI software )
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment