Sahara trumpets in the return of Gypsy Nomads

Carry on, across the whipping lashes of the desert wind,
And know that you will pass by the Arabs on an elephant
That is slow but strong, and they will salute you with
A canteen of wine and give you a bolt action rifle
With which to shoot camels and bandits.

The caravan, filled with Gypsies, presses on
Beneath luminous dunes reaching like cliffs
To the azure pool of the sky swathed across
The earth. And engines do not follow us here,
For gas is in short supply, and we wander like
Nomads because that is our lot in life, to
Experience the transience of shelter beneath
The beating of the heat.

And our religions were transient with our movements,
Linear but stretched out with myriad supplies, the grapes
Of Greece in our baskets with the olives of Tuscany;
Fine things we brought from Europe to create a garden
Of luxury in the wasteland of the Sahara.

During our great crossing, some soldiers stopped us
And tried to rob us, but the rifle barked its orders
That makes dead soldiers obey the entropy of heat,
Red rivulets sprayed across the fine cream granules
Of the sand.

And we married each other beneath a dead tree with
One leaf left that we plucked and cut in half, each
Of us keeping a piece in our logbooks for the sake
Of Saint Memory, our only oasis in the burgeoning
Waves of flame they call the desert air.