A meditation on the names of places

Morocco has two names and two histories:
Al-Maghreb, “the furthest west”
As distinct from the Midwest, and the east
of Arabia.
‘Morocco’ comes from the Latin ‘Morroch’
which refers to Marakkesh, its capital city—
Mur-Akush, the Berbers’ “Land of God.”
To decide between them is like deciding
between the mountains and the desert.
Sister of deserts, Maroc turns eastward
And listens to them murmur.
From the east, over the mountains – that is where God sits;
husband of their quiet, he tends to its keeping,
he does not wipe his brow in the fiercest sun.
In the mountains, the junipers and cedars
put out their hands,
sending the wind away with their scent,
away into the cloud like a black spool reeled with rain.