Desert Remembers Forest

Before cattle ate me bare
I remember dark wooden pillars
hung with damp banners of green.
Coloured jewels flew beneath the pillars,
soft, fluffy things scuffled beneath.

And the noise –
whistles and chirrs
and something called words
from the ones who carried arrows.

Now the sun beats endlessly down
on land parched to both horizons,
dust settles on dead wood and arrowheads
in silence.


Previously published in issue 141 of Orbis magazine.