The desert of eld Tasuun does surge
with waves of sand windblown in serried ranks
like heaving peaks across an ocean's face,
and fill the compass of the sun-burned world.
They reach from one bleak shore to the next,
and meld into an endless winding waste
that circles as starved vultures over prey
ready to drop exhausted, weak, near death.
The soulless sun is born from out its shore
and dies with mocking flashes of green light,
that bring a bitter dream forth from those lost
of verdant oases fringed with cruel palms
and mocking birds that sing against the boom
of travellers' footsteps stumbling across
relentless dunes to die from unslaked thirst,
with outstretched arms upon the lapping shore.