Читать книгу This Carting Life - Rustum Kozain - Страница 13

We were moving northwards

We were moving northwards, out

into a sprawl of black rock

while other epics lay crumpled.

Things down south were bad,

all talking, belching refugees,

and songs of prowess drawn from wells

dug from rock. So we lost our grip

time and again, saw our pleasures

fade in a cold, northern dawn.

Our worlds crumbled. Flowers

shivered in the gaze of reptiles,

and we pushed on.

Our clothes clung, our skins taut,

and the further north we moved,

the lighter we became.

The smell of angels and rock,

dust and aloe, moonlight,

these were the smells we now knew.

Free from the questions of our past,

we could move faster, shaking

dust into another dawn,

brushing hats and coats.

Free from dust, we moved

always northwards, always,

our hands down, swinging to a new rhythm,

our hair flames to gods,

those who would stay with us.

In a gully we came upon a scene

borne through the ages

and which we thought we’d left behind.

We closed our eyes and prayed,

knees sunk into the soft sand,

our ears trembling like bats,

our lives translucent geckoes

with irregular pulse;

but after the ceremony,

after the rituals were done,

we could do nothing but push on, northwards.

At dusk of another day our heads

were heavy: overripe fruit, chapped lips,

hungry hearts and thirsty hands,

and we fell to treachery,

clasping knives in unknown ways