DESERT SONGS

I

Desert fathers, you who live in caves

and grottos, who ran away

in search of silence, hear me.

Slowly I become acquainted with you,

even though an urgent voice calls me

back, always, into the crooked world.

I too know the bliss

when the hard wind dies down;

when the heart has found what it asked for,

and still finds it good, if only for a moment

between one season and the next.

Give me today

just a little of your silence,

although I bend the knee to the things of this world.

Give me the strength

to remain waiting in the same place,

to remain standing underneath the sun

till the song sounds clear again

between the bones of my skull.

II

Desert mothers, you who stand

with empty arms, who dance

with the invisible bridegroom,

by what roads does the heart

travel to this place? What appetites

slowly spent themselves

and were calmed, until you came here?

Can you see me, will you recognise me

where I stand, in the hard light

of my desire?

Is there room for my hunger

there, where you read together?

And when the sombre song finds you each morning,

does it have knowledge of me

and the shadow I cast

across the path,

in this noisy old world?

 - Jacques Coetzee