In a long ago age, when Shannon's soul and Samiels
told a Thousand and One
Tales.
Ghazal preens his coal black feathers, a runt of a roc, though still immense, and my bosom friend. We sit on the sandstone cliff face above the blossoming desert oasis, my abaya whipping in the dawn's wind.
"Habibi, you are lost in your mind again," Ghazal sings, looking out at the goats that climb the acacia trees and eat leaves too high up for ants to dream of. "Rani, look – the griffins come flocking to feast on fresh meat. The phoenixes are rising – feel the stirring of djinn on the winds. The world awakens, but you are in dreamland, writing of rajs and whirling dervishes and saqis, of the love between man and immortal. We must eat more than your pretty poems. Come, mount my back, let us hunt."
