Sands of Shaybah

From a big 737's porthole looking down upon rows of endless, barren mountains, from the clouds to the wadis I descend unto thy waiting arms among the dunes. Far in the middle of a vast wasteland right in Arabia's remote Empty Quarter, searching for black gold hardy men toil amid howling winds and scorching sun. As rugged machines wander wildly free like tireless armies of booms and steel, proud towering rigs on lonely oil wells bore deep into earth's generous bosoms. In desolation removed from the world, striking symmetries on shifting sands! behold the shy beauty of prickly shrubs on quiet hillsides waiting for discovery. While hues of softly changing colors rest on sunlit peaks and hills by the shadow, footprints I will leave on yielding ground, faint traces that the wind shall soon erase. Oh, just to frolic in these steep slopes flat on my belly on a cardboard ship! amazed finding that by just being here takes me back to a childhood long ago. Shaybah, in coming I did not conquer for it’s you etching imprints in my brain, marveling why beauty and riches often lay hidden in isolation, it seems. Note: Shaybah is a newly discovered oil field deep in Arabia's Empty Quarter, one of the most desolate places on earth.