shadows of a sun-darkened land

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it's done now, this love, its life is done now

she's gone now
i don't know why she left
she's gone now

if every step i took
were to bring me to the horizon
i'd still not find her 

she's outsped time
she was always so quick
thought of late she'd slowed, i thought

sometimes i see her
she smiles; i can’t
my sisters say she’s happy; i’m not

i judged the change of seasons by her eyes
i traced the mystery of life in her hands
i learnt by listening to the beating of her heart

her warmth has no substitute
her love was fierce
her light was light

if i could i'd say to this poem 'be'
and she'd be again
my mother

this dark is dark

 

       

 

your early-morning timidity disquiets me
the hesitant opening of your eyes
the furtive look around the room
the darting under the covers and curling up against me
your constant fear of the darkness lingering on

today i have written a poem for you
i have been to every room
opened every cupboard, searched under every bed
have been out into the yard and looked around
there is not even a cloud in the sky

neither need you question again your own goodness
i have been in your heart too
and found it brighter than this poem
it is well you cloak it with such modesty
or else we'd never sleep

from today let no doubt or fear assail you
the sun that arrives in an hour
is the same sun that has been to the west
it never sets
like love it sometimes merely rests

 

       

 

i like most the hours
when the evening fires
have been lit across your sky
and night like your hair
swirls in scented air

when the symphony
of your silence
suffuses the shore
and the waves gently bear
the blossom of the moon

 

       

 

above all now i know
how often beyond the shores of a word
lies a sea i do not understand

but you my love fly
above the storms
of sea and land

your flight is swift and graceful
my ship on the uncharted sea
is never far from the sand

 

   

 

you are quite right
i have nothing to offer you

the building society takes a third of my salary without fail
the hypermarket a third of what remains
the postmaster and the corporation claim one sixth each of that
the maid and other dependants their rightful share
the bank occasionally retains a fraction for that rainy day

my work demands half my time at least
a quarter, shall we say, goes in sleep
an eight to poetry or chess is probably correct
one sixteenth to reading is all i can afford
and a sixteenth for the other demands life makes is small

my love is shared equally, i think
god has had a claim from birth
my brothers and sisters have always been there
earth and sky move me, rain fascinates me, so does the sea
all men i love as my own

so whatever you say has to be true
believe, if anything remained, i'd offer it to you

 

       

 

you cannot know the fears i have
as i think about you

i fear that i shall live only at your laughter
lie awake long nights while you sleep
so loneliness does not trouble you
nor hunger, nor thirst

overwhelm your waking world with wonder
with the music of other worlds, your earlier home
read to you poems written the night before
while you smiled bewildered

or just when my very breathing begins to depend on you
even as your tiny fingers close around mine
some insensitive thing
crushes your butterfly spirit

shadows of a sun-darkened land
flow over you
and the eclipse
closes your eyes

i cannot live with the thought of having you, loving you
any other way
a day without such care
has no meaning

we shall find for you a name
your name shall bring light

 

      

 

tazkiyah

i have seen you in your mother's womb, content
for now in your singular sovereignty
like a star in some other universe
turning slowly round and seeing itself

living brightness
undazzling to yourself
i prize your coming need
to find us reverent at your feet

 

      

 

this learning poem is for you 
my sleeping child
before i become confused and forget
which is the star and which you

but you are so much more than any star
that even i, forgetful as i am
unused to separating light from light
find yours the brighter of the two

why should i compare you to a star
when the brown earth glows like the sun
water gleams, and autumn leaves
fly like sparks from a whistling wheel

god has given light enough
to those who seek it
but i am learning too
his special grace in choosing you

 

      

 

my newly bought watch haunts me
at asnam last night i felt it slash my wrist
the silver turned a startling red
the earth tremored again
my skull split into two
bones like twisted steel stripped of flesh
clawed the air
beneath the rubble the dying cried for help
i tried to reach out
but my newly bought watch stopped me

 

     

 

hide, hide the soul's torment
its deepest doubt
its grief gone wild

perhaps, a further day will find
among the rushes of the mind
pharaoh's other, bright-eyed child

 

       

 

the sun rested on my back
like the she camel i was torn

crows ate corn from my head
my heart became a thorn

salt filled the void of my eyes
my mind was blistered and worn

sometimes from some unfamiliar sorrow
a hiroshima or nagasaki is born

 

       

 

three mile island
uses heavy water
to turn night into day

a handful of sand
a little light
and rain

constitute the plant
that brightens
another way

a meltdown
is disintegration
a heart cannot contain

 

       

 

innocence is a two-edged sword
only they know
who have sharpened it on their bones

darkness is an organic world
the secret, slow
kindling of the astral in stones

 

       

 

to no one is the sound of rain holier
than to those who once could hear
and ripened fruit upon a tree
is holiest to those who once could see

egypt in its seventh year
saw rain gathering in a tear
heard in the stirring of the blood
the orchestration of a longed-for flood

 

      

 

when all fails my god you remain
and like the leaves of summer rain
illuminate the earth and sky
as once you kindled mount sinai

and i who stand beneath the sun
wordless after the rain is done
watch my burnt hands start to flower
once touched by your endless power

 

       

 

spring quickening with the quest for breath
sees only death in the fallen snow

summer tempted by the throb of life
charges the crushed seed below

autumn withered or withering away
daily recalls its sometime glow

winter the ascetic shelters unseen
threatened by life's fitful flow

the seasons have faults like mine
with difficulty we grow

 

      

 

i find journeys of a day
unsatisfying every way

i need lifetimes to explore
each step past the open door

 

      

 

returning summer found me scanning the sky
for a flock of birds
my childhood loves and cares

names did not mean much then
just sight and sound, the occasional impossible touch
before the warmth fluttered out of my hands

and the near sky winged far away
you took the sun with you when you left
and i had not even given you names

this early summer i stand alone on the shore
the sea is a singing green, the sun is here
but you have still not come

and will not now, i know, except perhaps
floating in on the tide
the sky and the sea are one

as the sun goes down to gather you
new birds begin to flurry in the nest of my heart
and i too am renewed, like you

i watch you whirl about my face
displaying, like children, your own new gifts
as i repeat over and over again your names

 

      

 

for douglas

alone in my small study
i think of you, poet friend
at the harbour early in the morning

the wind ballooning your jacket as it would a sail
and you as curious as a sailor on new land
taunted by the ever present sea

the ships around you are aglow like dangerous women
the stars having let them safely by
now want out

darkness has a fight on its hands
cranes become giraffes
the ships quiet

their restlessness gone
light gentles the sea
a poem bursts in your head

 

       

 

predawn
warm earth
stirring the womb

dawn
earth meets sky
the pulse begun

noon
the shaping
of bones in sun

evening
the world
quickening in an arc

night 
labouring birth
of light

 

       

 

the bureaucratic tortoise
is an ethnic marvel

it works best, it is said
unprodded. it disdains

the hand that feeds it
rather like a cat

in some ways it is a heavenly body
regal, firm of path, enigmatic

when it sleeps, it sleeps
undisturbed. it is never irritated

it has some shell

 

       

 

here lie justice and freedom
side by side, friends no one could keep apart
stand not too long in their sight
or the heart will break at seeing once more
blood flow where the arteries were severed

and brightness dazzled the sun
the earth has a way of taking back
those who love her most
come, let us go, it is spring again
and the jacarandas are in bloom

 

     

 

the bread i eat is crusted
tastes of a labourer's sweat
and a little flesh even

milk sours on my tongue
it curdles in my cupped hands
confutes my prayers

this day this earth will not accept
the mixing of my bones
with its holy soil

i crush the stone of despair
this land is agony, open my fist
find a rose gathering its blood from mine

 

      

 

it wasn't the season
for mulberries
of that i am sure

i dream of this child, still
hold him in my sight
his fingers are closed

where he found the mulberries
at this time of year
i do not know

asleep, his lips cannot stop
the trickle on to his shirt
in his hands too the mulberries have burst

 

      

 

if you wake up one night
unable to sleep
listen carefully
and you will hear

oars splashing against water
as another man starts
crossing the seas
towards quiet

the first sea is innocence
of a child nibbling his mother's breast
secure as a lily in a lake
as soft and round and bright as a moon

the second sea is understanding
the limitations of boundaries
of a toy train caught
in endless circling

the third sea is fear
of stealing the second
to discover in the spirit
a spreading flame

the fourth sea is shame

the fifth sea is anger
at the seizing of the harvest
of the helpless earth
at the commandeering of the sky

the sixth sea is death
a small strait really
between life
and life

the last is quiet
as a seed forming
if you wait patiently
you will see it grow

 

       

 

for my students

today your thoughts lie beyond examination
the earth too has her secrets
the universe has a billion stars at least
we are awed by one

galileo in his indiscretion
proclaimed a circling earth
the earth itself sometimes
produces a flower with the face of a moon

blind men test their power by staring into the sun
return to cold graves comforted
the universe continues to grow, like thoughts
a comet storms the sky

 

       

 

the most i fear of heavy rain
now that the garden has been laid
is a washing away of newly rooted grass
clinging desperately to transplanted soil
not yet part of a firmer, surer earth

some of the hardier plants though
whose names i still don't know
are more determined, have already made a niche
for themselves in the ground, settled in comfortably
like friends of one's friends

who make themselves at home
before one has said hello
and who have approved of the bedroom
admired the kitchen and retired to the study
before one has learnt their names

but it is the newly rooted grass that worries me
how tenuous is its hold on life
how much more tenuous i ask
is the hold on life of people living at the crossroads
of life and death, the would-be cultivators

of the land (if there was any), the would-be
workers of the cities (if they were allowed there)
the grass people
clinging desperately to a loosening earth 
it is the rain that worries me

and the flood that follows
the river feeding on the banks
children, houses, trees, men and their women
the frenetic struggle in its belly
the swift swelling outwards

but the people at the crossroads fear another storm
darker than any the clouds can conceive
water is not the only agent that can wash a land clean
scrubbed hard enough by man
the land can also look new again

if you are prepared to overlook a stain here or there
its is not so much the rain i fear
the grass can grow again
it is the loosening of far more precious soil
the ritualistic scouring of people from my land

 

       

 

i'd belong if i could

to the wind that would raise
children's kites in palestine

i see children, bullet-torn, spreadeagled
like kites, eyes upward to the sky

to the sun that would praise
the mountains of afghanistan

i see women and children burning
as a fire sweeps through the grassless air

to the rain that would sing
to the green fields of south africa

i see men, women and children drying
like uprooted trees that would not fit

the farmer's straight line

 

       

 

the afghans are at home in afghanistan
the russians are never at home
the americans are at home everywhere
even on the moon
the palestinians were at home in palestine
the british are at home in politics
and have always been
the israelis run a large house in washington
and are extending a small one in tel aviv
only the south africans have homelands to give away
and feverishly too

 

       

 

hush the anger
let it lie low like a ceasefire
starve the sorrow
kill any dissident despair

though the morning may break
like a cluster bomb around your head
the truth remains unruined
god's reply to oppression never changes

 

      

 

not the earth's submission to the sun
nor the waves' succumbing to the moon
not the resignation of spring to summer
nor the capitulation of autumn to winter
not the yielding of seed to soil
nor even the delivering of life from seed
is certain
but jerusalem shall be free