On The Old Silk Road Poem by Roy Ballard

Old man

The bells are sounding out the camel's tread.

I hear the mules stamp and the iron shoe

ring on the wheels. The eighteen hills ahead

await the caravan; the stars wait too.

The Gate of Demons is unbarred again;

the road is open to the camel train.

Young man

Old camel-puller, turn away your face,

the evening star no longer beckons you.

A diesel engine sets a better pace.

Your final stage is done. The sky turns blue.

The pink, Celestial Alps announce the dawn.

You and your midnight stages are outworn.

Old man

Without a guide the Gobi is a grave,

the Lob is an illusion. Take a guide,

young sir, upon the road and let him save

and keep you when the stony ways divide.

Don't follow melon skins across the sands.

Beware of voices in the empty lands.

Dust devils dog the day; they twist and turn,

they twirl in empty coats of sand and stones

but traveller be warned: these devils burn

to cloak their nakedness in flesh and bones.

They haunt the blackest stages of the night

with shadows, lures and with uncanny light.

Among the silent dunes a voice sings out,

you hear it calling urgently, a shout,

a cry for help, a snatch of demon song;

ignore it, whip the caravan along;

to seek it is to leave your bones out there

with those who followed voices in the air.

Young man

Your eyes are on a lost, outmoded way.

Old man, forget the desert's evil hours,

the thirsty road, the caravanserai;

the Eighteen Hills are now beyond your powers.

The time has come for you to be abed

when constellations swing above your head.






'The iron shoe' the brake of a waggon wheel.

‘Camel-puller' old colloquialism for a Gobi carter.

‘The evening star no longer beckons you' desert stages were travelled

by night.

‘Celestial Mountains' a range of mountains in the Gobi.

‘Gate of Demons' a gate of the Great Wall of China.

‘Lob' a mysterious desert of bad reputation lying to the North of Tibet.

‘Follow melon skins' it was said that a trail of melon skins led to the oasis of Turfan.

‘The Eighteen Hills' was a stage on the Silk Road.