Run the Gauntlet

Tis Solar Noon

Its unrelenting heat

The torrid midday sun

Tis baking my feet

‘Mad dogs and Englishmen’

I know only too well

As I think to myself

‘Mad dogs, go to hell!’

My furrowed forehead

Resembles tracks in the sand

Bursting with beads of sweat

Like swelled irrigated land

I turn to my ‘oppo’

Carrying the too familiar

‘Thousand yard stare’

 And with the tip of a wink

I let him know I’m there

The signal to move

And we’re off again

Like a trail of ants

We use the terrain

Keep to the treeline

I regurgitate in my mind

We’ll be safer here

We’ll be harder to find

But to get back to base

Our gangly guardians

We must leave

And run the gauntlet

A treacherous trail

We must weave

The exact path we follow

Burnt into our brains

Has kept us from harm

Blood pumping our veins