A man kneels down on Uluru,
begins a walkabout:
hesitation a stranger, I now go
– $20 sneakers my barefoot stride –
to stroke ‘n string a songline,
her tracks neon light over pavements
plain to read ‘n with ochre write

A medicine man bows his head
in the badlands, dons a mask –
dances for rain so rain would come;
and with each day a wonder I go,
for the white of clouds aim my eyes’ arrow
to down the game my gods decree
worth those names which none I’ve told

Karnak’s pylon, the high priest passes
to set down his wish and world –
seeker of Ma’at, should summers endure;
nights in bars like sand in the glass,
and her laughs they weave this town’s sky
whose arc I trace to drink dry that spring
that gives birth to sacred Nile

In killing wind, old shaman sinks:
his heart the drum, the drum his heart,
sun’s eye blind, with knife of bone
draws moon of Aske on the hide –
tangled in strings, my mind’s ablaze;
all four winds they quench at her seita
through which portal, beyond I dive