Salt bones and holy sands.(Poem)

 
Salt bones and holy sands 
 
I 
 
From sand blown into curves by a night wind 
the morning smelts cold sheets of black 
layer by layer, condensing yellow to silver. 
 
A white air burns the serpent's eye. 
If Leviathan had rotted on the shore 
his spine might glint like sharp barbed wire. 
 
The lizard zips along the dry hills, stops, 
runs, breathes, thrusts his tongue, the blood 
red tongue which splits a small and holy air 
 
gliding from the borders of Lebanon with cedars 
to the hills of Israel where avocados grow. 
The tongue tastes residues of nomadic ghosts: 
 
Moses on the cliff, and Christ in airs; 
Mohammed with his raised pen dipped in ink 
the color of the scuttling …