The Afghans [poem by Rex Ingamells]

[Editor: This poem by Rex Ingamells was published in Gumtops (1935).]

The Afghans

Four Afghans sit in evening light,
With features dusked by turbans white,

But eyes like sun-glow I’ve seen smoulder
On a lonely desert boulder.

In circle, cross-legged, they converse,
With accents guttural and terse.

Unknowable are nomad faces
Till you haunt all desert places:

The same pent dreams glint there unknown
As on the eve-lit boulder-stone.

Earth brother, I must stranger be
To such fierce taciturnity.

Source:
Rex Ingamells. Gumtops, F. W. Preece & Sons, Adelaide, 1935, page 6

Editor’s notes:
taciturnity = not talking or reluctant to talk; to be taciturn is to be reserved in speech, reticent to join in a conversation, or temperamentally inclined not to talk