Boats of the desert
The acacia tree understands well the meaning of the transient and the eternal.The acacia tree knows the gullies, valleys, and ravines even before the desert was born. It knows when the drought was born—the drought that taught the earth the art of dying. The acacia tree knows the details of the story and the melody of water’s farewell from a distant time. The acacia tree tells of how nature forgot its intimate language, and along with it forgot the funerary boats that preceded the boats of the Pharaohs by thousands of years. The shaman heard the story from it, engraved it and painted it on cave walls and in the open air. He painted the boats of the Arāmāt, carrying images of souls to their final resting place. He painted the boats in Wadi Chouinet, carrying sorrow as a final flicker departing with a faint echo. The shaman engraved the boats in Wadi Tajinat as evidence that drought was a kind of obscure pain. As for Wadi Nina, the shaman engraved a small boat there, carrying nothing but the hope of water’s return after it awakens from the dream.
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