On Mount Nimrod

Travellers invade the darkened
valleys of the Hittite kings
to reach the threshold of the range
and scale its apex with the dawn.

Terraces of gods and priests
overlook colossal chains
of vertebrae and pelvic bones
visible through earth's membrane.

Above the terraces and altar,
packed stone shapes an omphalos -
the tumulus where Nimrod's lions
have gazed into the rising sun

so long, their eyes are blind
as walls, paws crumbled and dispersed
as sand. Displaced, the heads of potentates
edge gravely closer to the brink,

where radiance retouches scars
on granite lips and cheeks;
the severed torsos, set apart,
imposing on unchallenged thrones

placed to dominate terrain
their empires overran. Eminences bare
gigantic haunches to the warmth of day;
the bed of the Euphrates sinks in flame.

On the western terrace, chiselled
profiles of high priests in tall
headdresses of Assyrians await
the day's last rites.

The crowd senses the desolation
buried in this tomb of kings,
keener than the reed-voice
of the wind, arcane initiate.

Between the hemispheres of west
and east I glimpse a form, a face -
a chimera composed of light
and altitude and space.

I shudder at the cold, but more
than chill runs underneath my skin:
those truths of the wind-honed mountain
will not come again.