Preferring the company of nature to man,
disappointed in love, he retreated to the desert.
But this was not any ordinary desert,
for helicopters and jets appeared overhead. A parade of camels.
When a lion came out of the darkness,
the man was angry at his horse for not warning him.
Far away, it was difficult to see the minarets in a steep-sided valley.
When the Taliban seized him,
they put a noose around his neck,
and he messed his pants.
Far away, a flute played, a missile launched,
and a child kneeled drinking before a well.
Still, whatever the faults of life,
the merriment of it was only partially erased
by the curious flies of Allah investigating
the carrion hanging in the public square.
It was as if this had not once been a man at all,
but instead a white-winged dove,
its solitary neck and breast washed lightly with pink.
Flocks of these doves are a common sight in summer,
nesting in fragile platforms of twigs,
eating small seeds from the desert willow.
On takeoff, they produce, with their wings,
a subtle, unearthly whistle.