Ubar~by Paul F. Lenzi

 

 

Ubar

Illustration of Ubar from “One Thousand and One Arabian Nights”

the eye in the sky

can see five thousand years at a glance

omanum emporium

cryptically set within neolith maps

drawn of shifting sand memory

Ptolemy keeping its secrets alive

coming into its legend and romance endured

for a thousand and one starred Arabian nights

the monopolied hub of the frankincense trade

imitation of paradise

pillars of Iram eight fortified towers

conceived in conceits of King Shaddad of Aad

a luxurious grandeur designed by a mind

that would irrigate deserts with milk and with honey

a city-state steeped in the trappings of wealth

come profane in its turning aside from its god

richly wrapped in its fate from the wages of sin

alas paradise gained becomes paradise lost

so sayeth sūrahs of Qur’an before Milton

the Aad become history’s tribe of pariahs

divine was the wrath who destroyed the proud city

with storm and voracious deep sinkhole of sands

disappeared so effectively all these millennia

not even likes of the great Al Auruns

could discover the desolate grave of her birth

no more caravans venture through Rub’ al Khali

no more wondrous oasis where mercantile wits

would negotiate markets and mutual avarice

leaving it up to the eye in the sky

to detect any delible outlines of greatness

that may or may not have been real