Ras Bir, 1976

Leave the town;

Not everyone can,

You need a camel,

Or a Land Rover,

(a real one),

And a driver

Who can infer

The road.

Take two spares,

We might be on

The moon's face,

Behind you,

Djibouti,

Ahead,

Rock,

Scrub,

A kind of

Desert.

To be lost,

To be stuck,

Is perhaps,

To die.

Why go?

To see the light;

Light houses

Call us.

It sits alone,

They all do,

This one watches

The Gate of Tears,

Flash-flash it says,

Then it rests,

Then flash-flash,

It works alone,

Its mates

Are ships,

Someday, perhaps,

There will be,

A real road.

For now,

The track is

Half imagined,

And the place?

Unchanged,

Unchanging,

As if we,

Had never come.

Djibouti, French Territory of The Afars and Issas (FTAI)