(2008)
Book Four
“Belinda and the fire-flies.” Written: 2008/7/8 to 2008/7/21.
Beats / Syllables: Irregular. Rhyme Scheme: None.
When the first fireflies lived on the earth,
everything was uncomplicated,
and the people had all the time they needed to “live in the moment”,
admiring the ancient order of things.
In time that all changed,
as the people became more and more divorced
from what they had loved.
One by one,
the faces of nature died,
or turned into stone and ash,
or ran away–or
simply disappeared.
The only ones who remained were the fire-flies,
but still, they only played and danced together
in fields of long grass,
unsullied by the fingers of man.
In time, even the meadows of long grass became scarce;
only a few remained inviolate.
It was to one of these last fields that I came,
not knowing why I had come.
My mind was elsewhere.
As I blew out the only candle,
plunging the wooden box-cabin
into darkness,
and made ready to lie down on my narrow bed,
I looked out of the window,
out of the small bedroom, and out
into the universe of unseen grass-stems.
There, the fireflies played, and lived out their lives,
as miniature models of
the eternal and infinite universe.
As I stood there,
silent for long minutes,
I saw how far away I had wandered
from the former appreciation of beautiful things.
More poignantly, however, I realized
that I had not only forgotten the fire-flies, the stars,
natural beauty, and the universe;
I saw I had neglected you as well,
for it was your presence
that the community of fire-flies represented.
This mystery, they never communicated;
I only discovered it sometime the next day,
far from the meadow of prophecy.
What has been lost in the night
cannot be retrieved in the day,
nor what has been lost over time
be recaptured on a moment’s regret.
Like the stars,
the fireflies were numerous and entrancing to watch,
but they could not be touched or collected.
Thus, over the past few days,
I have contemplated you,
but given up every thought of gathering you up,
as pearls from a broken necklace,
scattered on the forest floor.
*****************************************
“Songbird in the shadows.” Written: 2008/7/10 to 2008/7/15.
Beats / Syllables: 4 beats per line / irregular. Rhyme Scheme: None.
Verse 1:
Little bird, little bird, hidden in the tree,
Calling from the shadows, as we lie on the ground.
Your non-stop voice is urgent, and you won’t slow down or stop;
The times are short and fading fast, although the sun is high.
We lie upon a blanket, our ears so near the grass,
Our sight among the branches, our minds throughout the world.
You do not come to charm us, or draw us into mirth,
The voice is like a sponge of wine, upon a hyssop stalk.
Verse 2:
The sun above is cruel and hot, the sky bereft and bare,
But under spreading canopy of woven leaves and twigs,
The world is safe, and dreams can play, on shaded plot of grass.
Yet even they move inch by inch, as melts the ebbing day.
We lie together on the ground, in silence and in awe,
Admiring you who sings so true, and mulling long the past.
You do not come to sing to us, of things throughout the years,
But drench us in one last love song, for soon the silence comes.
Verse 3:
The years behind were full of pain, but here that matters not,
For strife and woe belong outside, away from sacred shade.
Of foes and riven fellowship, there’s not a sign or sound;
It seems the Garden came again, to briefly show us home.
We lie against the gentle wool, forgetting sorrow’s shame,
Relieved that we can think as one, and let you weave our dreams.
You do not come to make us doze, beside forgetful streams,
Yet give us calm, while there is time, while there is time to live.
Verse 4:
Little bird, little bird, you’ve flown away at last;
We look around to see your form, but nothing moves but leaves.
The sailboats in the harbor, are frozen in the glare,
The fortress on the rocky isle is hemmed within by trees.
We lie some moments, hearts absorbed, with what has passed us by,
The echoes bouncing off our souls, before becoming still.
You did not come to make us sing, or dance upon the grass,
But bid us forth, to part at last, and never meet again.
*****************************************
“As the moonbeams.” Written: 2008/8/29.
Beats / Syllables: 4–3–4–3–4–3–4–4–3 (verses, per line); 4–4–4–4 (chorus, per line).
Rhyme Scheme: None.
Verse One:
As the moon-beams leave shadows in forest of pine,
That are taken away by the dawn.
As the mist on the fields strokes the grasses with dew,
Giving life to the roots until noon.
As the clouds that hung golden at threshold of dusk,
Then snuffed out ere day’s mass is done.
So it is too, from may-flies to peaks,
For they fall, and they waste, and they
wilt, and they fade...
But it shall not be so with you.
Chorus One:
It shall not be so with you, who I’ve known,
For a life and a day, of things I can’t count,
Of noodles and travels and pearls of the soul,
That cover the land and the folds of our hearts.
Verse Two:
We know who is faithless, and know who is true,
Yet true ones are harder to find.
‘Midst oceans of honey and cherry-hued lips,
We gather our pebbles of gall.
If ten swear their heart, or fidelity’s clasp,
It’s certain that nine won’t return.
So it has been, on life’s dry plateau,
For they strive, and they doubt, and they
drift, and they fall...
But it shall not be so with you.
Chorus Two:
It shall not be so with you, for I’m drawn,
By your heart and your thoughts, of the life that we shared,
Of absence and gazes and similar quests,
That cross the wide sea and portals of dreams.
Verse Three:
Still comes the night and the killer of dreams,
Reality’s shriveling gaze.
Old friends are soon parted, and never come back;
They fade in eternity’s vales.
Yet crueller than these are the ones who remain,
In sight, but nowhere to touch.
So it will be, as you walk through the years,
For they came, and they went, and they
fell, and have passed...
But it shall not be so with you.
Chorus Three:
It shall not be so with you, for like peaks,
I saw you from far, and ran to get close,
And as gathering dusk overwhelms all the land,
You remain in the sun, and bid me go on.
Verse Four :
The pages of life will not stop on command;
They pass and move on like the clouds.
The years of desertion are suddenly turned,
For it’s you who has found a new home.
Yet even your rising can make you alone;
You gaze back on what you once were.
So you are now, with your children in hand,
For he came, and you met, and you
joined, and now walk...
And I shall be glad in my soul.
Chorus Four:
And I shall be glad in my soul, as I stand,
On the wide open spaces of shimmering sand,
My eyes to the heavens, to where you have flown,
For your dream is begun, and given you joy!
*****************************************
“Memo to Calypso.” Written: 2008/11/11 to 2008/11/12.
Beats / Syllables: Irregular. Rhyme Scheme: None. Plan: 1) Complaint.
2) Interlude, towards hope. 3) About Calypso’s mother. 4) The triumph of belonging.
When I am without shelter and feel unloved,
And when the sanctity of blood is washed away,
Like ink from a school child’s writing brush,
I look out of the window at the autumn trees,
Losing all their leaves in the dusty gales,
Or at the passing clouds in the darkening sky.
I stand for long minutes at the window,
My nose turning cold against the glass,
For I am so intent on watching the people below,
As they walk in and out of the darkness,
Between pools of brilliance under the street lamps.
The city beyond is shrouded in overwhelming detail,
Rendered indistinct by the fumes of a million fires.
Like a startled pigeon trying to find its roost at night,
I flutter in confusion among imaginary branches,
But the windows to the hoped-for rooms remain shut.
I wander alone down long and silent corridors,
Looking for those who should open a door for me,
And welcome me inside as one of them.
They stare out at me through the door-window,
Then watch in silence as I am washed away,
Downstream along life’s fast-flowing mill stream.
Thus are the ties of blood-kin rendered ineffectual,
With silent understanding by some the best I can hope for.
Who am I in this strange and forsaken world?
Where is my home and they who I belong with?
My life and my hopes no longer live in futility,
At the gates of those who merely made me.
I exist instead in the lives of those who chose me,
Then carried me in love to the present day.
In them I see lost blood-ties replaced by love-choices.
Oh child of destiny, remember your new mother,
Who, despising all the hardships of life,
Claimed you as her own and wove you,
As the finest of silk carpets, over the years!
Your home lies near the bamboo groves,
In Li Shui, one village among hundreds,
Within the land of fish-ponds and rice-fields.
Every woman like your mother made this land,
Bourne along by life’s great river, but never submitting,
Never allowing herself to be buried by circumstance.
Even now, as you share tea from the mountain bushes,
Sitting quietly at the sofa together, conversing,
Infusing the other’s thoughts and poise,
With your own appreciative silence,
Remember everything she did to form you.
The years are slower now, and so too her vigor,
But the memories run strong, strong as the current,
Which bore flecks of sand from distant Qinghai,
Immortal plateau-land of silent, brooding beauty,
Down cascading chasms of rocks and water-spray,
Past the fertile gardens of Four-Mountains,
And into the fish-pools of bountiful Jiang Su.
So too, she formed your nature and mind,
She who carried, dragged, led and forged you,
Training your mind and releasing your feet,
So that you might walk your own corridors,
In Cathay’s finest universities, your domain.
The powerful rise when you come before them;
Men cover their mouths when you speak.
Yet, for all this, you do not forget your mother,
The one who bore you on her own back,
Who even now carries you in her thoughts,
As the last stages of a mighty river carries a paper boat,
Down at last to the waiting ocean, the open waters,
And the dawn of further adventure.
The horizons, the eternal, opulent horizons beckon,
Calling you away from the sea-caves –
With their beaches littered with ink-less writing-brushes,
And the pools of reflective water in the grottoes,
Their uncertain portrait disturbed only by tears –
Calling you away from all these, to the sea.
The prow shudders through the racing swells,
As the banks of oars dip and rise in unison,
And the last seagulls overhead return landward.
The night arises, and under the brilliant stars,
The wooden shell of dreams moves under a gentle wind.
Above, the stars become scattered chips of diamond,
Laid down with night’s ink, the darkness, upon the sky,
Heaven’s paper scroll, wonder’s ultimate calligraphy.
As you cross the open seas, like Odysseus,
And reach other dry lands and observe them,
May you remember your mother, who bore you,
Who experienced pain’s agony and nameless joy,
All because heaven gave her a daughter,
As a bulwark against reproach and futility,
Through which she might boast against loneliness.
She is the root, from which you have sprung,
And her home among the bamboo groves the place,
From where your life, as mighty vines of ivy,
Courses over the entire earth!
*****************************************
“Preparing To Visit Persia.”
Written: 2008/9/18 to 2008/9/19.
Beats / Syllables: 10 per line, in four-line groups.
Rhyme Scheme: None.
If all that was beautiful in the world,
Were concentrated into ten small drops,
Then nine of them would belong to Persia,
Leaving the world to fight over the last.
If I must leave a final legacy,
A memorial by way of writing,
Then I would fain scatter it everywhere,
While walking through the fresh land of Hafiz.
Too long have I brooded over Persia,
Stealing subtle glimpses of her gardens,
Her vast deserts of salt and silent sand,
Her rampart mountains to the north and west.
An epic crossroads of many ages,
Made famous by many and loved by more,
Yet always tasted or felt from afar,
Perception three times removed from the source.
Every piece of dried fruit from the bazaar,
Eaten alone in dusty recesses,
In my own far distant land of exile,
Is imagination’s key to new dreams.
The wind outside in the trees is restless,
And it stirs up my long-imprisoned soul,
To break free like leaves torn from the branches,
Finding repose in the land of Persia.
As I plan once more to leave my homeland,
There are those who question why I would go,
Yet I leave them on the banks of Tagus,
Preferring instead the road to the east.
Drawn from the vale of long futility,
Watching the course of slow degradation,
I cannot refuse destiny proffered,
Opportunity granted from the flint.
I remember my three former classmates,
Who crossed my paths thirty years earlier,
But then disappeared into history,
Hidden as three petals in desert sands.
The sands of hostility and distrust,
Blown hard by an inconsolable wind,
And of circumstance’s cruel hindrances,
Have fallen silent for a brief season.
A brief and unfathomable moment,
As of a butterfly perched on a leaf,
Poised uncertainly between two seasons,
Surveying what has passed and what will come.
Thus I enter a place fully unknown,
Void of familiar reference points,
Yet celebrated among all peoples,
As a home for poets and travelers.
Grudge me not this short time of wandering,
Within the holy moments and places,
Along the footpaths once enjoyed by kings,
When the wind becomes still from its clamor.
Within a garden’s walled security,
Or alone on an endless desert road,
But also among the throng of others,
Let me see and enter into this land.
As one who swims with whales in the ocean,
Or who flies as a glossamer pigeon,
Let me forget my own fragility,
And follow after destiny’s summons.
*****************************************
“Above a Persian village.” Written: 2008/10/11. Beats / Syllables: Irregular.
The water channel above the village crosses the hillside.
Behind the walnut groves, now rendered immortal in beauty,
Even as their yellow leaves announce the coming death from winter,
The water course takes me far from the madness of things past.
The wind is cold and comfortable,
Blowing past the ears with the faintest of whispers.
I stand, with my face to the cold,
And my back to the just-sufficient sunlight.
The never-silent, ever-whispering flow of the water is calming.
It bears along the rolling flecks of sand,
Over and over, into and out of hollows.
It sweeps clean the small patches of water-weed,
And scours beneath the larger stones.
Around stands the silence of the reaped and waiting fields,
And the holy sanctuary of the green and golden-leaved walnut groves.
Here live the magpies, who, respectful of the silence,
Call out by measure.
Not so the crows down in the village.
For so many generations, the water-course has crossed the land,
Sustaining the fields, and offering peace and relief,
To all who would stand still for it.
Oh land, oh solitary small bird, let me never forget you.
Never leave me, either.
*****************************************
“Torshi the pickle.” Written: 2008/10/11. Beats / Syllables: Semi-irregular.
Note: The word “torshi” means “pickle” (sour vegetables) in Persian. (TOR-shee)
Verse 1.
I knew a girl (or thought I did),
From far-off Tabriz town.
She said she loved me through and through,
And steadfast would remain.
Nothing in life’s hardships,
The boring road of drudge,
Could make her trip or deviate,
From pledge of constant love.
Her name (she said) was Torshi,
For me that would suffice,
I dropped my hands and bared my heart,
Resolved to take what came.
Chorus 1.
Oh woe to me from Torshi,
The one with pickled soul,
Whose every word was vinegar,
Devoid of love or balm!
Verse 2.
Before too long we walked as one,
Along the pavement path,
Beside the lake in El-Goli,
Surrounded by the throngs.
They came from every walk of life,
That Tabriz had to show,
Arm-in-arm and step-in-step,
And heedless of all else.
The mist from drifting fountain spray,
It blew into their eyes.
I walked along with Torshi dear,
I thought of nothing else.
Chorus 2.
Oh woe to me from Torshi,
Who seemed with honey drenched.
Those sweet words that she used to sing,
Were needles caked in salt!
Verse 3.
I left her in the city oft,
To sell books far and wide.
Although immense the distances,
Our hearts were never far.
I thought and dreamed and wrote of her,
Heedless of my friends,
Who said they knew another girl,
That never smiled or sang.
I wondered if such things could be,
As we sat beside the lake,
Beside the sighing samovars,
Our gazes tight enmeshed.
Chorus 3.
Oh woe to me from Torshi,
A lamp of olive oil.
For even oil runs out one day,
And drops us in the dark!
Verse 4.
As time drew on my friends drew off,
For Torshi was my girl.
She knew this as we walked along,
Beside the lover’s lake.
As autumn waned and winter came,
Her love-dust fell away,
Replaced at last by bitter soul,
With wistful gazes down.
I chose to stay and not to leave,
She let me make my vows.
I cherish deep within the hope,
Of summertime renewed.
Chorus 4.
I wait for you dear Torshi,
Although I pine away.
Can pickled greens be turned to sweet,
Beside the lover’s lake?
*****************************************
“Crossing through Lorestan.” Written: 2008/10/14. Beats / Syllables: Irregular.
Note: Lorestan is a region within Persia.
If you would understand the soul of Lorestan,
You must go with the flow of what the earth gives you:
A vast expanse of unevenly rolling hills,
Sharp escarpments on occasion to balance the landscape,
And a constantly winding and compromising road.
Desert upon first glance,
With tired-looking soils of various shades of tan and neglected,
Desicated chocolate,
The wave-plain of Lorestan has pockets of suitable field-land.
Only the utterly determined need try, and they do.
Following after the few underground water-courses,
The trees and wheat fields –
Few in number –
Live in the balance between hardship and utter desolation.
It is mid-autumn, and the poplars are changing color,
One by one.
Harrow-marks have etched contour lines on the almost parched fields,
While the slopes elsewhere are likewise scored
By the feet of passing sheep.
Outside a few villages,
No one is on the land, save certain shepherds,
Their squadrons of sheep and a dog or two.
These glean the harvested wheat fields by permission.
From a distance, this land is virtually silent.
At noon, the landscape is harsh in its brightness,
And even the poplar groves in the valleys are hard to look at.
The next town, with all its trappings of habitation,
No longer dazzles the traveler’s eyes.
One’s heart is drawn back to the open land,
And the dry wheat fields.
*****************************************
“Oh sacred groves on mountainside.” Written: 2008/10/15.
Beats / Syllables: 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 – 8 – 6 (per verse).
Plan: 1) The groves. 2) The kings. 3) The students.
Verse 1.
Oh sacred groves on mountainside,
Tall trees among the stones.
From out of thee flows forth the stream,
That waters Hamadan.
From far around on autumn days,
The people come to rest,
Among the leaves of flashing gold,
And gurgle of the brook.
Your fame it rests forever strong,
To all the passers by,
To those who linger as they can,
And those who linger on.
Verse 2.
For out of thee came forth a word,
To Persia’s ancient tribes,
From Xerxes and from Darius,
To all they would command.
Carved on high stone in cuneiform,
In never-changing words,
The proclamation of the kings,
Revealed for all to see.
Your fame oh kings forever rests,
To all the nations shown,
To those who traveled home and spoke,
To those from Persia’s bounds.
Verse 3.
Now out of thee there comes once more,
New heralds from the kings,
Proclaiming new the Persian soul,
From Indus to the Nile.
Though draped in black and diffident,
And bearing books and pens,
They carry with them all the grace,
Required for glory’s deeds.
Your fame will rest forevermore,
Whate’r the soil you tread.
The world belongs to such as you,
Fair nightingales of peace!
*****************************************
“At a shrine in Shiraz.” Written: 2008/10/20. Beats / Syllables: Irregular.
Note: There is a shrine in Shiraz, in Persia, whose interior walls are completely
covered in small chips of mirror-glass. This poem is about my impressions.
Imagine if the many faces of a diamond,
Throwing out light in every direction,
Were taken from the ring,
And turned into chips of mirror-glass,
Covering completely the inner walls of a shrine.
Tens of many thousands adorn the walls,
And they look out in many directions,
Like a three-dimensional mosaic,
Revealing the foothills of eternity’s topography.
I scorned the mirrored walls at first,
As tasteless and unfit to rival,
To compete with the Sun King’s meeting rooms.
On a floor completely covered with Persian carpets,
Perfect art strewn about,
With the everyday service of newspaper pages,
At an autumn park-picnic,
A few of the devout were praying,
Or else enjoying the sanctuary of place and moment,
Studying away from the soul’s turmoil outside.
I scorned the tasteless chips of glass,
Until I came close to the wall,
And perceived heaven’s threshold.
I saw myself and others anew and not as before.
Part of us moved as usual,
But the other half,
Equally mixed with the here-and-now,
Revealed itself from another world.
It was certainly not “the other side of the mirror”.
I paced slowly along the walls,
With a sense of mounting intoxication,
Staring deep into what lay behind the mirrors.
As a single fish in the ocean,
I entered immense and swirling clouds,
Of emerald and silver glass-plankton.
It transported my tired soul,
Exhausted and jaded,
To places it had never been before,
Or even considered.
I walked one way along the wall,
And then back again,
Desiring to throw myself into swirl again,
To lose my entire consciousness,
In the tumbling cosmos of the glass-plankton.
It seemed I moved through the garden of paradise,
Seeing the same beings of day-after-day,
But in their future and intended form.
I lost all awareness of those around me,
And threw myself again and again,
Against the unseen wall,
Seeing the other side and wanting to come in,
Desiring to leave this world now,
And move in the undescribable refractions of paradise,
Among the swirling particles of light.
It was the first time in my life,
That I had seen the verges of heaven,
Contemplated it,
And wanted to come inside.
I was now alone in the shrine,
Save for one other on a carpet,
Somewhere in the opposite corner.
I walked too far along the mirrored wall,
And past an open doorway to the courtyard outside.
A solitary cat sat next to an empty chair,
Licking itself abstractedly.
I walked through the doorway,
And back into the world of shapes.
*****************************************
“Lines written at Cyrus’ tomb at Pasargad, on the 20th anniversary of my mother’s death.”
Written: 2008/10/24. Beats / Syllables: Irregular.
It was your words, oh king, that brought me to this land.
From long ago, in a land of exile myself,
Surrounded by over-worn textbooks and over-bearing masters,
Walking the silent marble corridors of tradition’s proving grounds,
And losing myself among the silent, leaf-littered woodland,
Tucked away in England’s immortal hills,
I pondered your words : Grudge me not this piece of earth.
Silent as blocks of long-weathered stone,
In a long valley surrounded by oft-rent and convulsed hills,
Shutting out all save the pilgrim,
Your words became a reminder, a promise,
A reason for crossing the geography of life.
Oh king : I have walked through this barren and futile life,
With its occasional tokens of refreshment;
I have wandered over the plains and valleys of numerous countries,
Surveying their high mountains of rock and snow;
I have observed the ways of the peoples,
And spoken a few of their tongues.
For thirty years, I have wanted to come here,
One of the few touchstones of the soul, my soul,
In a vast pin-cushion of places visited.
My eyes have roved over so many places,
And my shoes gathered their dust;
I have invaded the nations (but not as you),
Marking my progress on their maps with a felt-tip pen.
I leave no monuments, save fleeting memories in the minds of common folk,
Along the post-roads of Asia.
Of all who were famed among ephemeral mortals,
Only you and Prizhevalsky have I honored,
Leaving for a while the clamor of the living,
To see myself your final homes, monuments hewn by the respectful.
Like you, I have been directed as a water-channel –
Smaller indeed by far, but nonetheless among certain nations.
Your tomb has been broken into, become subject to desacration many times,
By both the strong and the passer-by.
Nonetheless, the raw majesty of those blocks of stone –
Hewn, scarred, and weathered – convey a message that I hope will
Never be effaced from the minds of those who pass by and consider.
Thus, arriving here after these years,
I cover my lips with my hand and say,
Oh king, may your memory live forever!
Oh mother, here I remember you,
As I have often done these past twenty years,
As I now cross the arid, rock-strewn earth-scape of Persia.
I am not far from your purview of life,
For it was you who cast in me –
By blood, by example, by training, by word –
The ability to consider all of earth’s horizons to be my own,
Irrespective of boundary, or tongue, or culture.
You have equipped me, so that I might carry little, yet see much.
Your influence has affected everything I have done,
And my exploits have been very much an extension of your fingers.
Indeed, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof”,
But for your quiet influence,
How else would I have known how to apprehend it for myself?
There is very little I do, or say, or think,
Which was not influenced by you.
Your resting place under a large, spreading beech tree is known by few,
And soon we who visit will be no more.
For you, there are no huge blocks of hewn stone,
Only the enfolding tree roots.
Instead, you have left behind an unseen memorial,
The gift of a mother to her sons,
Who receive from her hands, and then flow freely over the entire earth.
Oh mother! May you live forever!
May our passage through this world be, as it were,
The extension of your aspirations!
Today, I have kept my dreams,
And walked around the tomb at Pasargad twice –
Once for Cyrus, and once for you.
It is not the end of a journey, but a way-station,
For there is yet much to do,
And my traveling box of pins is nowhere near empty.
The monument is silent, for the curious have departed,
And left the stones to the ever-bleaching sun.
So too is the beech tree silent,
For the leaves have fallen to the ground, hiding everything.
As for me, I leave behind a trail of slowly settling Persian dust.
Come, oh memories, oh remembered ones, and travel in me.
There is still much more for me to do.
*****************************************
“Reflections at a water cistern.” cf, Jeremiah 2:13.
Written: 2008/10/24 to 2008/11/5. Beats / Syllables: Irregular. Rhyme Scheme: None.
Note: Yazd is an ancient city in Persia.
The former caravanserai stands in the middle of nowhere,
Seven days walk from Yazd.
Lovingly restored, sumptuously adorned with desert carpets
That are harsh to the fingers and touching to the soul,
The twelve-sided building enfolds a world,
A courtyard far removed from the modern dispensation.
Lying down inside one of the alcoves upon the roof,
On an old and slightly ragged desert carpet,
I looked at one of the timeless, iconic emblems of Persia:
The complex yet subdued tan hues of the brickwork,
Meeting abruptly with the achingly pure and harsh blue sky,
And nothing else.
The caravanserai was now a hotel for wealthy global tourists,
And was far removed from the lives of common Persians.
Outside the walls, twenty minutes walk into the desert,
Was a cluster of bushes, rumored to have a spring of cold water.
Breakfast as yet unserved, I went to the spring.
Leaving the walled-in, muffled security of the slowly awakening hotel
Required force, to rip open an unseen shell and enter the uncertain.
A few others were already on the gravel road,
In various stages of pilgrimage towards the spring.
I followed them, until they stopped in the way, and turned back.
We passed by each other in silence.
The land around the road was dotted with long-ago dried out bushes,
Extending far ahead to the slopes of the mountains.
For the first time, I saw a land completely pure of any human presence,
Save the road at my feet.
I stopped, and the crunching footsteps became a silence I could feel around me.
For several minutes, I stood in a place,
So far removed from the former world.
Is this how it is, in vast and uncharted realms of the world,
Where people have not yet entered?
Three small birds flew together towards the far-off mountains,
Diminishing faint chirps passing through immense voids of silence,
Until the stillness and the distance consumed them.
I walked on, until I came close to the large cluster of juniper bushes,
Surely there because of water below.
I felt the silence in my ears, inside my head,
As if it were noise.
I too became rooted, fixed for a moment in the long-dried soil.
Not a single creature moved among the bushes,
Yet, the morning new and fresh,
I imagined the unseen foxes, and stayed apart.
Who knows if there was ever a gently-rising pool of water,
Straight from the mountain’s roots far away,
Somewhere among the juniper roots?
Only the mice and the birds knew.
The rest of the world had completely receded
Away from the waiting desert and its blue roof above.
I stood there for a while, and walked over to a nearby rainwater cistern.
Aged, its concrete walls at once unfinished and cracked,
It held a thin layer of hardened mud, and a few lost bricks.
It was meant to catch the waters of flash-floods coming off the mountains,
Whenever they came –
But for who, so far away from settlement?
I stood at the edge and looked down inside,
Imagining the trapped trying to get out, back into the desert.
The shallowly-etched watercourse over the flat land,
Marked out in air and settled dust,
Came up to the cistern’s edge.
Not even imaginations came down from the far-away mountains.
Breakfast was almost ready; the bus was due to leave.
The walk back to the caravanserai was a time-objective,
And the desert shared none of its inner message with me.
Only those on the way out from chaos,
Who seek peace somewhere among the juniper roots,
Who stand in silence,
Can find the waters that flow in every desert.