Desert And Sea Poem by Tony Duffy

On the shifting desert horizon
A caravan of hazy images
Floated past my blurred vision
Past failures and disappointment
Moments of truth and small embarrassments
Camels silent shapes against the desert sky

I lived an age in the desert,
Arid days and frosty nights
My hand outstretched but never taken
No water of human kindness
No welcome encampment
No distant lights in the twilit dunes
Waiting quietly for an end

The heaving grey sea
Foam and waves
Ship pitching and rolling in the troughs
Cold salt water in your lungs
The wonder at the unrelenting wildness
And the question
Will you survive
Do you want to

You lived in the storm
Day by day with this question
Sometimes not much caring
So hard to stay afloat
So easy to go down

But somehow the sand became a shore
The dunes turned to ripples
A light shower blessed my forehead
I closed my eyes and dreamed
As the waves calmed
And you smelled the land
Felt safe and untroubled for a moment
And you slept a while

We woke together
And the sea was gone,
The desert had vanished
We looked to the hills on the skyline
And set off hand in hand