When he rose again
Looking for his friends who had gone,
He felt a strange exhaustion,
As if life had left his body.
He felt their absence.
He imagined the gazelles raising the dry dust
Like soft brush floating on the crests of sand
Swiftly changing direction, and the serpents
Asleep at the springs, slipping effortlessly
Into the water, and the wild she-camel
Vanishing into the desert. His friends
Had left him to a vast aloneness
He had never felt before.