In Skull Valley

                                                                                              "If a fool  would persist in his folly he would become wise"
                                                                                                                                              William Blake (1757-1827)


When I reached to lift the veil
I fell short of breath
Sunset was already dressed
In a night dress

In the valley
Quail ran, did not take flight
Granite shone in shades of gray
As if holding the day’s last lights

The valley was a tumbrel of rocks
Where a life was saved from its shame
As if a seamstress hiding her locks
Under a shawl and a false name

And in the cold of desert nights
I shared my pain, I cried a name
Without warm tears and free of fright
For of that granite my heart had become

… Yet, when I reached again
My soul was of that secret calm
Sunrise had washed its night in cyclamen
And the name I cried was now a poem

November 20, 2014
©Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2014