A Biblical Bestiary #1

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... blind guides, which strain at a gnat,

Sebastian Munster, Cosmographia

and swallow a camel. 
--  St. Matthew 23:24

In Arabia Felix this is the season
when the camels swarm:
huge hummocky windborne
packages of hair and dangling legs and spit
blundering like busses through the ochre air.

The wise traveller, knowing better than to speak
or yawn, will make his way across the sand
in silence.