The Desert of Egypt

by Opal Palmer Adisa

The desert is a beautiful, frightening place, an endless stretch of land, mounds of sand, and no form of life in sight.  Every time I drive through it, whether during the hot steaming day or the balmy night, I pray for safety, pray the vehicle does not break down, pray the driver doesn’t go mad and lose his way, pray that I move through it alive and safe. 

The desert shrinks my adventurous spirit. I do not harbor any fantasies about being lost in the desert. I do not have any need to rent a jeep and go plowing through its center to find its heart. I do not want to attempt to conquer it, the humidity of its heat rising in this 40 degree centigrade (104 Fahrenheit) blinds and stunts me, and I marvel how others, the Egyptians, conquered this land and still do.

While I hunger to know the secrets of the Bedouins who still live and move throughout this land, there is something primitive and unknown that I fear about the desert like I fear a python, like I fear a diabolical spirit, like I fear fear itself. Yet, as contradictory as it is, I am mesmerized by its beautiful and alluring spirit also, its magical form, its complex personality, its arid disposition. There are  many deserts all over the world, the ten largest in case you want to visit are: Antarctic, Arctic, Sahara, Arabian, Gobi (Asia) Kalahari, Patagonia (South America), Great Victoria (Australia), Syrian and Great Basin Desert in North America. I don’t know if I will attempt to visit them all.  But deserts are also transformed.  Although the root of the word comes from ecclesiastical Latin dēsertum (originally "an abandoned place"), Le Gouna that was once desert is now very populated and a site for tourists.  However, the desert is waiting its turn to descent again, despite the palm trees grassy fields and golf courses that have been imported.

         hello old girl

         with dry skin

          why do you stand out naked

         during the middle of the day

         bare your teeth and turn your face up

         for the sun to kiss it to blister

         some think you are beautiful

         and in some ways you are

         but your wide outstretched arms

         scare me  your scaly long-limbed legs

         your seemingly even skin

         that traps the eyes

         your self-containness

         your greed to possess

         scare me away