Ode to a Desert Woman
I remember, within the loose circle of a veil
A face-strong, striking, ancient and pale
Sphinx-like riddle its features bore
An expression so stoic, hard to explore
Chiseled sharply by piercing winds
Tanned copper by the blazing sun
It called for a scribe to write its story
To seek its history encrypted around
In the massive murky past, in the dunes that abound
In such enormity she stood; in distance she was lost
An eternal imprint on my memory she left
Aspiring life in the desert dead
A rare ore amidst the grains of sand
Unread, unnoticed, unnamed
How do I bring you to Ozymandias’ fame?
A version of this Ode was first published in Footnotes, my book of verse. Later it appeared in the Purani Kahani, the ‘Old Story’ of the Desert Woman I published in A Pakistani Trilogy.
parveentalpur 