The Mirage

This is the desert, as I promised you.
There are no landmarks, only
Those you imagine, or those made by rocks
that fell from heaven.

Did you ever know where you were going?
Am I as invisible to you
As you always were to me, fellow traveller?
You are not here for nothing.

There are no easy ways of seeing, riding
the waves of invisible seas
In marvelous vessels which are always
arriving or departing.

I have come to uncover the famous secrets
Of earth and water, air and fire.
I have come to explore and contain them all.
I am an eye.

I need tons of yellow space, and nothing
in the spectrum is unknown to me.
I am the living center of your sight; I draw for you
this thin and dangerous horizon.

Extract from "The T. E. Lawrence Poems" by Gwendolyn MacEwen