Only red mountains and bare plains,
the blue smoke of villages at evening,
brown girls bathing
along banks of streams.
I have slept with no woman
only my dream.
Says the brown man:
I have looked in no woman's eyes
only stared along eastward roads.
They eat out of copper bowls beside the fire in silence.
They loose the hobbles from the knees of their camels
and shout as they jerk to their feet.
The yellow man rides west.
The brown man rides east.
Their songs trail among the split rocks of the desert.
Sings the yellow man:
I have heard men sing songs
of how in the scarlet pools
that spurt from the sun trodden
like a grape under the feet of darkness
a woman with great breasts
bathes her nakedness.
Sings the brown man:
After a thousand days
of cramped legs flecked
with green slobber of dromedaries
she awaits
me lean with desire
pallid with dust
sinewy
naked before her.