Apple Season in Sahara

Fallow, arid and hostile is this sand,
unforgiving, malevolent and forbidden is the land
of caravans, bivouacs, mirages and oasis
where khamaseen, simoom and sirocco are fanned,
no hope for life in this ossuary of time,
and here each drop of rain is a full gulp of wine,
even opuntia the worshiper of the sun
would rot in disdain lest even pestilence resign,
in this valley of death yet my love is awake,
somnambulism perhaps or perhaps for life’s sake,
with loneliness and misery, their bounties a’plenty,
still forbidden is the fruit, and the bough that I shake,
here a fallen man and whose will is now gone,
for chasing shadows, and the moon doth justly mon,
not to dream tonight but of the grainy ocean grey
which shall turn to gold with the coming dawn,
and it holds a promise, pledging a season new
of gardens in the desert sodden with pearls of dew,
all this man must, is sow his eager seeds
in the orchard not far, where once the apples grew,
although there are not few but countless who leave behind,
the chimera of a spring, a mirage they set out to find,
this man, who is surely me, shall await for ever more
the Saharan apple season, while the rest may turn as blind.

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