Word: barrens
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
That was Rudyard Kipling's tribute to Afghanistan, a barren moonscape of a land at the "crossroads of the world," and to its proud and savage people. Conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century B.C. and by Genghis Khan in the 13th century A.D., Afghanistan in the Victorian era served as a buffer between Imperial Russia and the British raj. The Afghans accepted it all, but they exacted a bloody price. For generations, the Hindus of India prayed for deliverance from "the venom of the cobra, the teeth of the tiger and the vengeance of the Afghan...
...nation's current domestic oil production and 23% of its gas. The next place they hope to develop as a major energy source is a tough one: the floor of the ice-jammed Beaufort Sea, about 275 miles above the Arctic Circle, off Alaska's nearly barren north coast...
...everywhere. Torn iron shutters lie twisted on sidewalks amidst festering heaps of garbage. In once elegant residential neighborhoods, most of the villas are now hollow hulks, festooned with uprooted eucalyptus trees and scarred by bullets or grenades. Where the Roman Catholic cathedral once stood is a barren empty lot; it is hard to imagine a building ever having been there. The National Library was partially ransacked, its floor is strewn with books...
...that scene, the mother and son circle the stage, his blind tom-cat to her broken-winged sparrow, until Tom lowers his tail, breaks the silence in order to regain the peace of their barren thicket. A breakable pane hangs between them always, a horse-drawn past and jet-lured future caught in the same jam of traffic but still enveloped in the mist and mystery of dreams...
Unfortunately, Utah and Nevada generally defeat such attempts. As I left town, the land changed from low foothill country of Colorado. Watered hillocks gave way to the terrifying, barren and twisted land that sees less than seven inches of rain a year. The road, no longer flanked by fences and farms, cannot remain a symbol of man's secure hold on his own turf. It seems instead an imposition, almost an irrelevance. As I passed the turnoff to Salt Lake other motorists evaporated. I was left all alone on a superhighway, seeing five cars in half an hour...