Gold Rush

Arrivals Hall, Jeddah, 1976

Wool suit and cotton kameez
jostle on luggage mountains
for their Samsonites, Louis Vuittons,
string-bound cardboard cartons,
like rag-pickers on a dump.
At their feet, russet fellahin
from the Horn, or huts in Yemen,
bare-toed in sandals and soiled thobes,
add to the piles from L1011s.
In the scrum, six centuries elide;
Huntsman and hajji,
Bell Labs and prayer rug collide.


Prospecting

Chancers swarmed over Saudi
like locusts across oases,
...