To the Genii of the Faint Blue Home

Write me in my foreign land
I’m keeping jars of ruddy sand
Like moths on dusted shelves

Lares, send me a letter
I pray that things are better
May it rain again back home

Yet out on my far world
Sun-poisoned winds have swirled
So much like home, of late

To this land of reddened dust
Came seekers of the trust
Alchemists, like I

Who longed to stretch the promise
Of our bitter, winter harvest
and bring the bounty home

Skulking like red-crows
I don this dusted cloak
In search of better samples

The living things we found
Live strange beneath the ground
And breathe beneath the soil

They crawl in morning shade
In dusty little caves
Away from sun-blight air

As for the seeds you gave
I planted in the cave
And dreamt of olive trees

Like the last tree I recall
Before it drowned in that last Fall
in acid starlight rays

If my prayers you hear
Household god of many years
Then I’m not far from home

Hence, will I come flying
In my ship to homeworld dying
Laden with oil and desert flowers

And lay at your feet olives
Basked in starlight, August
O, last life-loving sun