From above
the grey haze
like a brown smog
has its own mass
smoke fire camp fire
curling from a hundred
camps
or perhaps twenty:
it is the beginning of
time

(From above)
distance mutes
the words and scenes there
or if at night
obscures but for shadows cast
hunched and erect
on the rocky walls

Those rocky stoney walls
vertical lifts, shafts, and ramparts
unapproachable massifs

The face is not unusual
with hair high on the
cheekbones
and brows heavy
They are raised in expression.

There is a tenuousness
tenuosity
standing like a halo
about the colony
in its ancient
hole

The fire light
sparks
reflects on the dark eyes
upturned
rapt in ideation.
They are fixing
the supernal fire light
Fiery pits, or poles,
perhaps brands hurled
in a slow tumble
across the fumaceous
slit of the sky

 




In the Rift Valley -
© 2001 G. Turner