Sinai Traveler

Sinai Traveler

Wisps of desert grass blows
Along the straits of the road
The bald rock mountains
Baked and eroded in a time forgotten
Raises and falls as the traveler
Marvels through the mini-bus window.
A camel sits and chews in the heat of the day
Beside a Bedouin’s campsite.
Multicolored tents are scattered
Around the snipen of greenery,
That the desert allows to live.
The road begins to turn and turn
Around the bald mountains
A giant rock shaped like a turtle
Sits among the white sands of a valley
In his thousandth year of silent meditation
Sand blasted mountains, made jagged
With wind, baked by sun, eroded with storm
Lies besides the giant turtle, and the road ahead.
Browns, whites, grays of the Sinai Desert
Are only interrupted by the black tar road, or
The tents of the Bedouin,
Or the rest stop to quench the thirst.
Silently the road travels around,
Upon, or over the mountains,
The traveler can catch a glimpse
Of the circular stone dug-outs
Which stand alone upon the high peaks,
Reminding all who passes below
Of a not so long ago war,
When this desert land was divided.
As the traveler cannot imagine,
What was there here to fight for.