Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SLEEP WALKERS, by NATHALIA CRANE



Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SLEEP WALKERS, by                    
First Line: You who read the rituals
Last Line: Takes a camel's toes.


You who read the rituals
Scrawled about the rose,
This concerns a journey
'Twixt a camel's toes.

In an old oasis
Basined like a shell
There abode a red bloom --
Rajah of the Well.

Round his porphery frontiers
Yellow billows ran,
Overhead a vapor
Becked the caravan.

'Cross those saffron sand dunes
'Twixt a camel's toes
Came an alien seedling,
Grew another rose,

Quite unlike the first one,
Pallid as the dew,
And a desert teasel
Stood between the two.

Love that nudged the by-laws,
Made the statues lean,
Eyed that arid teasel
Standing in between.

Sent the dusk -- a dervish
Waving regnant arms;
All the mangroves nodded,
Drowsy were the palms.

From an ancient nullah
With authority
Was dispensed the darkness,
Censorless and free.

Fountains juiced with poppy
Sprayed on every hand;
Fell the teasel's girdle
Clinking to the sand.

Prayed that ardent alien
As the flower prays:
Save me from the blemish --
Heartbreak of the vase.

Pondered she o'er cradles
'Twixt the camel's toes;
Swooned and by a well-spring
Saw that other rose.

As the sleeper walketh
Chartless but serene,
So she flanked the teasel
Lolling in between.

At that very hour,
Orienting chance,
Went a well-side rajah
Straying down a trance,

Far beyond the candles
Of the catechists,
Treading to a tangent --
Two somnambulists,

In that old oasis
Never more forlorn,
Passing on the rosebud,
Handing down the thorn,

Giving breath to heaven
For the new ones' need,
Tutoring the leafage,
Lanterning the weed,

Halting all the aeons
O'er a flower rite,
Resurrecting Eden
As it was at night.

You who read the rituals
Scrawled about the rose --
Love that lacks the howdah
Takes a camel's toes.





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