Exhausted returning
From first pilgrimage
At caves of mountains
Antiques store keepers
Still living secretly
Wise owls of the desert.
Gone as young men
After an ancient wisdom,
Hieroglyphs, rare palimpsest,
Tomes of divine revelation,
Poetic, prophetic, sacred
Long time hidden scrolls
Amphora of sacred oil and wine
In the heart of the mountain.

Donkeys carrying loads
Piled up with bundles
Full to rim with bread satchels
Rainwater water skins
Yellow and rusty scrolls
Royal letters sealed
With melted crimson wax.

Sky maps showing the way
The first starred glowing star
Between the horns of oriental moon
Limestone and chalk craters
Eerie land of astral Cappadocia.

From the ruins at crossroads
Wooden triptychs were rising
Unfold wings of angels on the cross
Eagerly waiting to take flight.

Serpentine of nimble gusting
Winnow through sun’s sieves
Hot dunes of stirred sand
Golding hills of the desert.
Peregrine, dreamers, seekers
Of ancient papyrus, palimpsest
Hollow encrusting into the notch
Every day a digit, years past
They were underway off
After treasures of wisdom
Hidden by saints and prophets
In secret cellars of wilderness.

Road stones crashing under hoofs
Of asses thick clouds of dust
Dancing in sunlight mirages.
Saddlebag of bog macerated hemp
Oakum rags by sun tanned tassels,
The only ones that knew we had longer
To wander through the wilderness
Asses, long-suffering, stubborn
Yet they only knew the way back.

Vainly whip up Balaam his donkey
When a clairvoyant quadruped resisted
Not once, but three times in a row
To blindly follow the master's own will
And fall on the path of perdition.

Gloriously yet humbly
Riding a foal entered Lord
For the last time in that city.

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