The Edge of Emptiness

 

It was always at night that I could hear the silence

Enveloped in an inky blackness under a canopy of a trillion stars

We sat around a fire of already scorched wood

An oud played and someone nearby sang mournfully

Often with exhileration there was a unison of hand clapping

A goat which had baked all day in its eartly oven

Was exhumed and with a salad arranged

A feast from nowhere in a place far from anywhere

Only faces were visible in the firelight

There was no fear despite the depth of darkness

We slept in the open wrapped in blankets

The stillness embued sleep

We were alone, exiled from the world in a wadi

on the edge of the Empty Quarter