Facing westwards, the camel
       if indeed it is
       a camel, watches

 the cars as they hurtle by
       beyond the vallum:
       a millennium

 at least it has been waiting
       in the rain out here
       as fresh worlds appear

 before it, chiselled on this
       cross by an artist
       who might have noticed

its like on a long journey
       to the Bible lands –
       a sight which his hands

remembered, or more likely
       extrapolated
       from an image he’d

 happened upon one day
       in a manuscript
       which image then slipped

 onto this sandstone pillar
       abstracted slightly
       as the rich must be

 perhaps, to enter heaven:
       a camel which could
       unravel, a flood

 of interlacing knotwork,
       to spool like a sigh
       through some needle’s eye.