Bolero in Najd

                     Bolero in Najd

Bolero was there

dear Najd

under your bluer

than blue skies

under your old

and young stars

for you

and only you

to hold dear

and cheer

For you to wear

and to carry afar

and to leer

that lonely scar

with no one to share

Bolero was there

dear Najd

Bolero was there

From your high and low lands

high and low years

and their tears

were born

one precious drop by one

unfeathered and lonely

like your desert flower

a rare arabian beauty

from this earth laced its solemn

Shy like your desert rain

among your ageless wadis

Jumana was born

Jumana of Najd

as she will always be known

singular and blessed

a rare arabian beauty

on this earth as in heaven

In Najd

Jumana was everywhere

like its sun

in its moving sand

and in its restless air

Jumana was everywhere

in its stubborn wadis

that she wears as beauty scars

across this sacred land

adored with heavenly stars

its stand

against time and bliss

Jumana was everywhere

like a cosmic

eternal kiss

upon this land of

Najd

Jumana was everywhere

before time learned onto who to stare

and with whom to share

her eternal beauty

and her celestial grace

her gift and bounty

to her chosen place

Jumana of Najd 

Eyes meet across time

Jumana's and his

two novae not of this earth

a singular moment of an unwritten history

a moment of birth

a beginning of another surreal Najd story

to be written by both

like none before

or since

save

Leila and her Kayss

Eyes meet across time

Jumana's and his

in a timeless land

under timeless skies

a moment of birth

of an eternal prize

from this giving land

that is Najd

Now feathered and together

Jumana and he

take to the skies

still sands and

white air

below

and above

all the heavens to show

Sphere onto sphere

they roam

as princess

and her emir

suns young and old steal a glance

with light from their distance untrue

Do you see Miro

molding his Milky Way

dear Jumana? he calls

or Dali dragging his Virgo?

Can you spell Leila in the stars of Hydra

dear Jumana? he calls

or Kayss chasing those rays for you in Antlia

like Duchamp's dream brush

one primal ray by ray

one rebellious star by star

he trawls

all provoked together for you to wear

in extreme lush

a necklace

for a princess

made in the heavens

for you dear Jumana

he sighs just for you

To steal a tethered stare

on your journey home

to the land of Najd

streaming hair in starry wind by hair

stripped bare

of envious space and time

only primal meaning and rhyme

will tie you always to me

he sighs

like your gentle smiles that hide our dreams from the night  

dear Jumana

till our desert sky disinherits this ancient sea

and our desert sun its lucent light

Bolero's tunes

were there

through Jumana of Najd

in those hidden chimes in her skies

and in her forbidden morphing dunes

in Jumana's eyes

playing those tunes

with her silent

rhythmical sighs

Bolero's tunes

were latent

in your dunes

Najd

and nascent

in Jumana's tears

tunes of drops gently falling onto dunes

drop by drop

dunes sculpt the desert image

of a celestial gift

Jumana's tears

and Bolero's tunes are one

with your dunes

a cosmic union

re-written anew in Najd

to usher in tear and silt

her unrehearsed

impending death

that looms closer and closer

to be the fore

of a triad

that is forever unversed

Jumana of Najd

you have been chosen to soar

In a singular moment of an unwritten history

unfolds a new surreal Najd tragedy

his Jumana ascends to skies he cannot reach

to heights Bolero cannot climb

and depths no tunes can breach

Jumana of Najd

can you hear me? he calls

Silent and abandoned

he falls

as does his meaning and rhyme

never stopped searching for that boundary

between the real and the imaginary

where he has seen her face countless times

in stars

dead and alive

and in his empty words and orphan rhymes

and has sensed her eyes countless flights

in cosmic sighs

near and far

but never close enough

to arrive

Can you hear me? he calls

his Jumana of Najd

He lolls for an answer

a whisper

enough to alter

this reality

of a singular moment of history

of a singular tragedy

whose lyrics were woven

by Jumana and he

to the tunes of Bolero

for a story stolen

and was never meant to be

because of one ascended

and the other subtended

in a surreal Najd tragedy

Jumana of Najd can you hear me? he calls

silent and abandoned

he falls

a final fall

to his abyss

his meanings shattered

and his rhymes torn

sands shifted

in the only form they know

death to call

less

his Jumana unborn

and an orphaned

Bolero in Najd

for all.