Tracks in the Empty Quarter

Beneath the moon where desert winds complain,

the traveler hears a laughter in the sand;

the ghoul walks the waste with hungry brain.

It waits beside the road no map has planned,

a woman’s voice, a jackal’s crooked grin,

inviting strays with soft and beckoning hand.

The dunes conceal the bones that lie within

their shifting vaults where caravans once passed;

the ghoul remembers every mortal sin.

Its shape may change—now beast, now maiden cast

in phantom grace beside a lonely well;

yet those who follow seldom travel past.

For hunger dwells where desert spirits dwell,

and night grows thick with cunning older still:

the ghoul whose cunning turns the dark to hell.

So wise men mark the stars and keep their will,

avoiding voices drifting through the sand—

for where the ghoul waits, silence follows still.