Moses Displaced (edit 1)

 

This desert will entomb me.

Each grain of sand will consume me;

A feast of decay, a burial by decree.

This desert will not let me escape.

It will hold me in its grasp

While in the sun my waters evaporate.

I have carried my people far, as if

On a river we travelled, in a reed basket ,

Seeking the promised land —

The swaying tree, the white-tipped river

Winding between the shadows of the valley, the dreams

Prophets have handed down like swaddled babes.

But now I know.

This desert is the end for me.

It whispers; it sings

The desert’s words are my unravelling.

This will be the home of my bones until I

Am desert too, unrecognizable even by God,

Blown across the sands as sand myself.

This desert’s rising and falling bosom undoes me,

Drinking me into the expanse so uniform

I will be forever displaced.

Moses Displaced:

This desert will entomb me.

Each grain of sand will consume me;

A feast of decay, a burial by decree.

This desert will not let me escape.

It will hold me in its grasp

While in the sun my waters evaporate.

I have journeyed far and thought

I might see the promised land; see the green valley,

The swaying tree, the white-tipped river I have dreamt of

Winding between the shadows of the valley

I had imagined…

But now I know.

This desert is the end for me.

It whispers each evening; In the morning it sings

And the words are my unravelling—I will never leave.

This desert will be the home of my bones until my bones

Are desert too, unrecognizable even by the eyes of God,

Blown across the sands as sand themselves.

This desert undoes me, seeks to hold on to me, to bring me

into its rising and falling bosom and hug me eternally,

Drinking me into the expanse so uniform I will be forever displaced.

The Poet is an albatross (III)

 

No matter how prodigious the wings,

No matter how resilient their feathers,

No matter how far they extend…

At some point

The poet’s wings will falter.

Words and thoughts plunge into the big still

And the poet must endure the minutes,

Hours and days as if strung up on the tree,

Blind to events, severed

From the pulsing heart, the poet’s lungs

Laboring to inflate and the poet’s sacred voice silent.

At such times the poet must then be patient;

Let the tiredness settle, let it weigh down the words

Until the curving words and all their possible connotations,

The flowing sentences and their musical enraptures,

sink into oblivion — dare them to be gone forever!

And in that moment the poet’s strength returns,

The feathers flutter as words and rhythms return

Like green leaves and the albatross takes flight once more;

Heads into the great trajectory across the globe, migrating

Across the lines of other poets, other thoughts, other rhymes

Remaking everything, recreating and soaring into the blue.

Two Women, One Child and The Judgement:

On the marbled floor, perhaps a mosaic, the tree

Spreading branches like burgeoning humanity,

Both women collapse, their hands beseech,

Their eyes wet with tears; they each tell their story,

Call for Solomon the Wise to grant them leave to claim

The squalling child as their very own son (and that babe,

Innocent of crime, did he have a sense of calamity?).

In that crowded chamber, how the onlookers

Must have studied the two? Did they place bets;

Did a voice cry out as if a new tabloid was being sold?

Were there conjectures made; whispers behind hands;

Judgements on each woman’s performance?

How many of those onlookers

Would have made a decision and moved on

to the next judgement? And if they

Looked closely into the shadows of the room

Did they see an angel shimmer, could they

Have heard the breath of God, have seen Him

Silently stride through the congregation

And into Solomon’s mind; releasing logic

And in Time, to set their King aside

From the horde of cast-off declarations?

Was Solomon’s God his innermost voice

Eternally extolling him to make the ethical choice

Regardless of how he must look to the outsider’s eyes?

And how did Solomon the Wise look

In those moments when he gave his decision?

Did the crowd gasp? Did they cover their eyes and weep?

Did they clench their fists and consider a revolution? Or worse,

Did men feel their loins stirring; knowing some other male’s child

Would soon be severed in two? Did the many beasts

In that room win out over Solomon’s emerging civilization?

And in the aftermath, as the mother gave up her child

And so gained the highest ground —

Leading to the saying that love conquers all—

Did men then feel that shudder of missed opportunity,

Of limp disappointment at no bloodshed,

Or horror at each other’s (and so their own)

Hunger for the child to be slain upon that marbled floor.

And Solomon, alone that night,

Did he weep for mankind’s future?

Did he realize that the beast is tattooed

In secret, in the soul of every child, so that each of us

Thirst for blood, seek the darkness not the light,

Shiver with delight when harm visits

Neighbor and foe alike?

Samson: (edit 1)

"The sun is within me and so is the moon"
Author: Kabir

Your hands

are embedded with minute

fragments of bone, a tribute

to the jaw of the jackass—how clearly

you should have seen then,

the warning implicit in your weapon.

The flesh that covers them—warm

even now, (the ridicule you have become)

chained and kept far from the sun—flesh

that has touched lips and breast and blood,

touch now what your eyes can no longer see—

and your mind expounds, as only a mind can,

how your eyes, lured by lunacy, have led you to this place;

for in the dark

you have forsaken yourself, followed instead

the fallacy of the moon

whose weight is nothing

compared to yours and whose light

is but a reflection—a lake that reveals

but has no reality—yet

you gave the moon all your secrets,

allowed the sickle to shear your strands

and remove your strength; now

your hands, hands that once held, caressed and fought,

rest upon the two pillars of the temple

as you strive to bring everything down…

yourself

the moon

and the shame of being blind when the sun

gave you all the light you ever needed.

SAMSON:

"The sun is within me and so is the moon"
Author: Kabir

Your hands

still embedded, minutely,

with fragments of bone

from the jaw of the jackass – how clearly

you should have seen then,

the warning implicit in your weapon –

 and the flesh that covers your fingers,

warm even now, ridiculed as your are,

chained and kept far from the sun,

flesh that has touched lips and breast and liquid essence, touch now

what your eyes can no longer see - and your mind explains to itself,

as only a mind can - how your eyes

have led you to this place;

for in the dark

you have forsaken yourself, followed instead

the fallacy of the moon

whose weight is nothing

compared to yours and whose light

is but a reflection, like the lake that reveals

but has no reality, yet

you gave the moon all your secrets,

allowed the moon to remove your strength

and now

your two hands, hands that once held, caressed and fought,

rest upon the pillars of the temple

as you strive to bring everything down…

yourself

the moon

and the shame of being blind when the sun

gave you all the light you ever needed.

Salt

Like a mound, I feel,

Piled but on the slide towards a fatal spread

Atrophying…

And in my ears your words,

More salt upon the wound,

Ring - forming a conch of my heart

So nothing escapes

But pours towards my centre

And commits me to this weighty state

Of waiting…

Of crying

But the tears cannot shift enough salt

And my flesh burns

And my eyes

Are now blind.

I await the return of your flesh,

Perhaps even a finger, to reach across and touch

Turning everything back to me again.