The Desert Edge (Part Two)

On comes a traveler from lands that I have not wandered only visited Bringing with him memories of the pains I have borne through my life Like the desert whose dunes I dared only once to climb when youth held me fast A fleeting grasp, a tentative hold that was as it must be for us all I have come to see In those valleys of sand where the sun drank from my body ravenously to crack my skin I saw only once the whispering vision of life in the distance Shimmering in the heat of the burning sands stood an oasis many miles deeper So I set out with that vision hardly in my mind across the desert Over mountainous dunes and into abyssal valleys with the sun raking my back I walked and then I crawled when my feet became blistered stumps rubbed raw I crawled until my hands and knees bled I crawled until I held my head high no longer Still I wandered, still I moved despite the sand choking my eyes closed I crawled my body burned and my eyes blinded by sun and sand Only to find my way back to this shack on the Desert’s edge My journey had betrayed me I believed My journey had twisted me all around I thought Until today when came a wanderer through the desert forge To sit down and rest with heavy sigh and cloud of slowly settling sands On his shoulder sat a grey old owl watching me silently with eyes of tired wisdom In his arms the man carried his second friend a satyr with ivory pipes to match his horns I nodded in quiet solitude rocking back and forth in my old wooden chair So it was that we listened to the gentle creaking of the wood Listened to thunder rolling in off the great Blue Divide Listened to wind shushing through the leaves of Heaven’s Gate Felt the heat wafting over us from the Desert’s edge Neither of we two speaking, only listening until at long last with the sun beginning to set The satyr stirred just enough to lift the pipes to his lips and then to play A hauntingly sweet song of blissful sorrow like age-old memories of lost youth And we listened to him play his song long into the night Until the stars failed to shine and the curtain of day touched the veil of dreams “Time to leave, time to go, time to say farewell For there are roads still to travel and I have yet much to see And so long a way to go,” he said with a quiet voice of strength