Nomads

Nomads are not collectors of rocks.
The family of Hassan found themselves
in a desert where red rocks
turn orange and violet in the sunset,
their shadows rising from the sand
purple and indigo up their craggy sides
as the sun drops like a stone behind a mountain.

Hassan’s eyes cut right and left
at the splendor everywhere
beyond his prayer rug.
This beauty brought his mind to
the vibrancy of the hues and the arabesques
of the very rug beneath him and,
though the family moved on,
he knew he would always have
the loveliness of this evening
in his life.
He could roll it up, unfurl it and
contemplate eternity upon it.
Nomads are collectors of rugs.

Barbara Wolf (2006)

[These two poems represent contrasting ways of appreciating the beauty of nature and natural objects. The speaker of each poem, very different from one another. Nevertheless share an aesthetic sense whi can be found in some degree in all people.
-RocksWorks]


To be a collector of stones
is to furnish a space with silence.
To hold them in the hand,
smooth and flat or rough,
almost round, a beneficence.
And yet, it is through eons
of the violence of fire and ice
and planetary upheavals
that they come to their present peace,
to rest here for awhile on a window sill
in sunlight and moonlight
and night’s long darkness,
to quiet the soul.

Stones are as varied as music
from the lumbering bass drum
to the staccato of the piccolo.
Sprinkled with water,
their colors sing.
To move them from place to place,
to build a cairn
where balance is all,
is a meditation.

Barbara Wolf (2006)