This Poem was Submitted By: Robert Wyma On Date: 2002-04-20 14:34:51 . . . Click Here To Mail this Poem to a Friend!

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Empathetic Reverie in Timbuktu

The old man glossed tilting back in his chair folding closed his book and gazing without focus into infinite views of historical panorama’s as he touched course hair and caught the acrid mix of sweat and beast stretching endless before and aft as the ant like procession of fifteen thousand camels and eight thousand soldiers chased without certainty the city of ochre walls and shade cool water promised in legend as Timbuktu Time dissolved in the fluid of reverie as the year 
25 marked the march of the greatest caravan ever to challenge the Sahara as the Sultan Mansa Manu rich with riches tangible and stocked with scholarly tools and scholars to teach sought to claim this Timbuktu, this center of empty desert for his own purposes as the capital of an African empire. He could hear her hum as traveler, scholar, and trader mixed with three hundred years more to create this crucible of culture a city of gold rich in legend isolated and inaccessible for all but the brave and home to sixty thousand  safe from the wicked Sahara challenging her walls. He spilled salty tears as the great spirit of Timbuktu wrestled with time and lost as he had and wincing with sting of loss relented as the inevitable would steal the best in certain decline.

Copyright © April 2002 Robert Wyma


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