The nursery of dust

There
In solitude. Near the river. Beside the tree.
In the dimness of the house. Down in the house. Under the stairs.
On the thresholds. On the boat. On the port pier.
Beside the brook. In the hall of the house. In the vast café.
In the middle of the yard.

No
lover withdrew with his beloved.
No friend played the love chord.
No hand stretched to touch a woman’s hair.
No woman dreamt of her charming prince.
No one danced for the night.

And the sky,
the sky did nothing
but anticipate my steps
to lead me to the graves of the void.

The sky assassinated no one,
but weaved a country of hell
out of my childhood.

The sky
pulled to itself the country’s clouds
to fill my heart with desolation.

No problem.
I’ll win the next round. I’ll enter
the battle-front determined. I’ll pull the void
to the pulse of my heart. I’ll ambush the sky.
I’ll fill my chest with its night. I’ll rob it
of all these stars. I’ll hide them behind
my door. In the grape nursery. There,
where the hymn is dizziness in the head
and the echo
the home
of poets.

I’ll say
to the night
O companion, we’ll spend this day together.
We’ll open up wells of darkness for the sun, and domes of dust
for the earth.

I’ll say
to death
O my friend! we’ll set a thousand
ambushes for life.

I’ll say
to dust
I have no homeland between whose moons to hang my heart.
No sky hides my sorrows. No sea for me
at whose shores to stop. I own
much of the mirage of the earth
much of the desert of love
much of the harshness of the heart.

OK.
The war will come to an end, will not come to an end.
Love will be used up, will not be used up. Moons will fade, will not fade.

I slowly
cull the rose.
The world might perish to eternity. Leila
might leave her tower. Her voice might desert my heart.

Let’s divide
the world then.

To Leila
its breast. To me its dejection. To her its warmth. To me its nakedness.
To her its grass. To me its desolation. To her its roses. To me its losses.
To her its land. To me its sea.
To her the world.
To her its orphanhood.

THE NURSERY OF DUST