Herbert Mason

Enkidu was ignorant of oldness.

He ran with the animals,

Drank at their springs,

Not knowing fear or wisdom.

He freed them from the traps

The hunters set.

When he rose again

Looking for his friends who had gone,

He felt a strange exhaustion,

As if life had left his body.

He felt their absence.

He imagined the gazelles raising the dry dust

Like soft brush floating on the crests of sand

Swiftly changing direction, and the serpents

Asleep at the springs, slipping effortlessly

Into the water, and the wild she-camel

Vanishing into the desert. His friends

Had left him to a vast aloneness

He had never felt before.

That night he had a vision of an ax.

What does this mean, he said on waking;

The people stood around the ax

When I tried to lift it, and I failed.