Yeats was thinking of Thebian sands
when he wrote how the world
can turn “featureless desert,”
to sift, shift and “run through
our fingers.” He meant life,
and so do we, as it can, overnight,
turn itself, flipped like a pancake,
into a small, shifty plot of space
we no longer recognize.
Then we tumble about like Alice
in her Topsy Turvy world.
Travel in the desert is tricky,
but sometimes the lands
of our lostness, the sands of our exile
can hand us hidden treasure
… if only we do not panic
… if only we can wait
with empty, upturned hands.
Carol Hamilton has published 17 books: children’s novels, legends and poetry, most recently, SUCH DEATHS from Virtual Arts Cooperative Press Purple Flag Series in Chicago. She is a former Poet Laureate of Oklahoma and has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize eight times.
Nevermore Journal 