"The Camel’s Odyssey: From Ancient Toes to Distant Roads"

 

"The Camel’s Odyssey: From Ancient Toes to Distant Roads"

I. Ancestral Shadows

No child of dunes, yet king of sand,

Your lineage walks a stranger land—

Once, fox-small feet with fourfold tread

Pressed forests where the west wind fled.

Giraffe-camels browsed the dawn,

Their necks like creaking masts withdrawn,

Till fate’s tide turned: some eastward crept,

Some south where Andean glaciers wept.

North’s last sons sank into stone,

Their bones the only markers known.

II. South American Kin

Now vicuñas, light as mist,

Dance where freezing summits twist—

Soft as camel-pads they go,

Grazing slopes where thin winds blow.

Sentinel and swift retreat,

Their fleece more dear than kings’ conceit.

While guanacos, broad and dour,

Mass like storms on Patagonia’s floor—

Wild kin tamed to llama’s load,

The Inca’s weight on mountain road.

Alpaca’s coat, though fine it gleams,

Ne’er matches vicuña’s moonlit dreams.

III. The Bridge of Service

When Columbus breached the sea,

No hoofbeat shook the land—save thee,

O llama! Sole beast bowed to bear

Gold and corn through thinning air.

Still today your patient frame

Climbs where engines fear to claim.

IV. Global Steed

From Australia’s rabbit-warred plain

To Zanzibar’s monsoon-slung chain,

You hump the wire, you haul the bale,

A nomad still, though leased to sail.

Canary isles or Tuscan hill,

You bend—but never to man’s will.

V. Epilogue: The Eternal Stranger

Melancholy architect,

Building roads none could erect—

Your toes pared down by time’s harsh hand,

Yet still you walk each demanded land.

Sundra