St. Anthony in the Desert

Rising and falling

The vultures await my death

For hunger has crept across the sands to me,

Fasting has shrunk my limbs,

Mornings of prayers, devotional evenings,

Waiting for apparitions

And the miracle in the sunset

Of God's fiery face;

Denial upon denial has left me bare

and I am alone

Left with mirages in the afternoons

Waiting for visions and the caravans;

But no one comes,

And night is stalked by wolves

Who hang their murderous lantern eyes

Along the dunes.

No generation sits at my feet,

And I am alone made stranger by my echo

And my staggering shadow in the sand.

Words vanish instantly in air,

And I have labored across the desert singing

To greet a caravan that was not there.

In agony I have welcomed wolves

And preached my understanding

To the vast mute audience of dunes.

And I, a river in the desert

Whose wisdom waters sand;

The teacher in an abandoned world,

Bringer of fire,

sitting in the desert

In the hot sun,

behold my virtue,

A solitary flapping rag above the sand.