The undulating sands stretch out,
a vast expanse, sweltering
under the gaze of the sun
as it burns its way across the sky,
dunes flowing like currents,
tides on an endless sea
the color of ground cumin,
of cinnamon.
A wall reaches toward the sky
weathered and incomplete, broken.
Columns stand alone,
lonely sentinels from a forgotten time,
swallowed by ever shifting sands
beside a courtyard full of chipped cobblestone
and dusty mosaics, glass
colorless.
The ground bears deep lines,
like scars etched onto its skin,
from building foundations
long since withered away,
long since disappeared to
the wind,
to the unforgiving hand of time,
the coarse brush of sand.
Beside the broken wall,
between lonely columns,
in the dusty courtyard,
between etched lines,
where footsteps once echoed
where voices swelled over cracked desert sands,
and fires once blew smoke into starry skies,
There are only ghosts.
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