Afghanistan

Strange gods irradiate the desert:
Desiccated mountains dimly glimpsed through flying sand,
The salt river scours the heartland of the dead,
Ragged roadmenders wave empty waterskins, lamenting…
Volatile, the river tapers almost to extinction,
Then suddenly, somewhere else, mutates into a lake,
Shivering, phantasmal, between earth and sky.
Blowtorch wind storms the water into waves,
Toppling crests of yellow froth that break into rainbows.
Upstream, a herd of bullocks are swimming across,
Drovers astride the leaders, urging them on.

Nacreous morning conjures with a lopsided grin:
Wild melons sit pregnant by the twisting road.
In a fly-eyed little town dogs bark in the distance,
And an old man laments under a mulberry tree:
“Where is the light? The light is extinguished,
Once I prospered, but now I have nothing.
Once I ate the fruits of the earth, but now I eat salt…”
A naked man appears on the road,
Slowly strutting like a diver on the seabed, entranced;
He pauses in the middle of the bridge awhile,
Then stumbles away toward the mountains.
Sandbanks keen in the wind,
Outcast souls in limbo.
Stunted trees cast ghoulish shadows.

The twisting roads comes suddenly
To a verdant valley ambered in heavenly light,
Terraced fields where sickles reap in easy unison,
And laden donkeys trooping in good order.
Ebullient boys sport with the river,
Jumping from branches, whisked along in the frisky current
To deep delicious pools downstream.
Silk-bright women stroll the banks, gaily chatting,
Poplars shimmer, willows flounce in the breeze.
Slow streams dawdle through the apricot orchards
Where old men proudly dandle their grandchildren,
Building up their sinews and bones with stories.
Green-apple-sheen sky: the odd squint of sun
Slices wryly through imbricate branches,
Photographing fish-flash in the shallows.
Clambering in a mulberry grove, Tajik lads
Shake the branches, laughing, while their sisters below
Hold out blankets to catch the pattering fruit.

Dust-embers swirl over red-hot earth:
The track winds up by castellated bluffs,
High above the turgid yellow river.
Exhausted, you ride into a village-oasis,
And tether your mount beneath a walnut tree
Where a spring bubbles up through lunar sand
And a rapt stallion nuzzles a smiling mare.

Further on, a body lies face down on the track,
Skull smashed to pulp with a rock,
Lammergeiers congregating for the love-feast.
Beetles carry off bonbons of horse-dung in the dust.
The gorge constricts, granite chaos echoing,
Caves’ feral eyes pursue you from above,
Now and then an overhanging slab
Crashes down with ominous report.

In the Parian Valley, huge intricate spider’s webs
Glisten in the sunrise; pinnacles ignite,
Towers of silence on an icy star.
Mir Samir holds the shaky horizon,
Hedged in haze and floating in shadow;
A vast meadow materializes, kicking with wild horses,
Magnificent creatures, manes streaming as they run.

Digging a pauper’s grave for the sun,
The wind hustles hearse-clouds from behind ghastly mountains;
Occulted streams whirr under terminal moraine
And bass notes boom from the glacier
Where visceral batteries of hosepipes spurt.
The cloud is lifting; the mountain is on fire;
Vapour eddies over the nether scarps,
Shuddering with rockfalls’ boom;
Everything is wobbling, disintegrating…
Sometimes a sudden hush seizes the moment,
The roaring of a seashell pressed to the ear.