Desertification

The men on horseback lift their spears so that the points are those of a compass.

The lion, which is North, watches them sardonically. Its coat is burnt golden by the rock and sand, but its eyes are the green of the sea: deep and wise, calm and violent.

The men on their horses rush towards the heaped gold.

The lion does not make a sound. That moaning you hear is the people.

The lion opens its jaws that are redder than the sun at night, and breathes on the men on horseback. Like the sand they are scattered, and when at last they come to rest they find that they are changed. Their feet are burnt brown and orange by the rock and sand, and their eyes are the white of bleached skulls, and blind.