Once, west of Jibāl al-Hajar,
in an age of sand and silence.
Wind stripped the stone,
wells collapsed into dust.

People gathered what remained,
dates, skins of water, tools, cloth,
and walked away.
They moved as the war-torn move,
though here the enemy was
the desert’s hunger,
the air itself.

Centuries dissolved in the leaving.
Caravans faded into memory,
memory into history.
Still the sun endured,
the dunes rehearsed their endless shift.

Not points in stasis,
but the long drill of Earth,
its slow breath,
its pendulum of deed and respite.

The story repeats of human writ,
oceans climbing,
forests retreating,
cities learning thirst.
heat rising,
people leaving,
the Earth remembering
its fire.