Empathy with a Camel

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

"Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime, and, departing, leave behind us, footprints in the sand." A Psalm of Life - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The key to Longfellow’s often repeated quotation has to lie in the words ‘remind us’; for better or worse, we all leave our footprints in the sands of time, not only the famous (and infamous).

EMPATHY WITH A CAMEL 

Crossing a desert,
hump on the back, sniffing
out oasis and shade,
penetrating mirage on mirage
enough to attack
a hopeful visage, angry pricks
of sand, graffiti
on a human soul, left to the mercy
of fingers on a rag doll 

Crossing a desert,
hump on the back, sniffing
out oasis and shade
under the spell of a culture
of adventure,
needing to explore Dante’s inferno,
no matter vultures
invariably homing in like drug dealers
at a local disco 

Crossing a desert,
hump on the back,
sniffing out oasis and shade,
compensating for delusion
with illusion...
Lords of Misrule taking the blame
for any blisters
on the soul, although (trick or treat?)
it’s our call 

Making our way
across the sands of time, leaving
our mark, one way
or another, inspiring a generation
of hopefuls
with no intention of becoming food
for vultures to leave
misleading messages while raking over
bones of history? 

Humanity, making
what it will of its ever shifting
landscapes of sea,
sand, earth and sky, each to its own,
whether a camel
at home in a desert or human being
intending to flower,
last seen counting rings on a tree stump
and getting the hump

Whoever we are,
whether travelling on a train, bus,
sailing boat, private jet
or taking a camel ride into an inferno,
so will the Winds of Time
have us set out on yet another journey,
for better or worse,,
the richer or poorer, across multifarious
landscapes of memory 

Copyright R. N. Taber, 2002, rev.2022

[Note: This poem takes its cue from an earlier poem that appears under the title 'Riddle of the Sands' in my collection, First Person Plural, Assembly Books, 2002; it is a complete re-working of the original poem to the extent that I hesitate to call it a revision.] RT