With the royalist victory the war ended, but the war left a lasting wound to the land. Aqueducts that once carried life from the mountain valleys to water-starved lowlands now lied on the ground, shattered by the cannon balls; and with no one tending them, karizes collapsed into nothing but a series of parched piles of dirt.

As the water dried out, desert reclaimed its long lost domain in haste. Under it's harsh rule, tender roses and jasmines shriveled and crumbled into dust, and spindly poplars took their place. The stately sarays were left to erode, and tiles and stuccoes that adorned the walls in times past now glistened among the dirt and sand.

As the poet approached the bāgh, he could not but sigh and shudder as the sense of lost overwhelmed him. He soon recalled an ancient poem and began to recite it silently.



The palace where Jamshid held his cup
The beasts now rest and sup
Bahram who hunted game non-stop
Was hunted by death when his time was up.

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I drew this sometime before coming to Morocco. The poem I included in the accompanying short story is by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhī, a 13th century Persian poet better known as Rumi in many countries.