from Haske

I. 1966

In time I can move backward, just as I can move
forward, and the past, ever-present, lingers on.

The supposition is that I will continue to listen
             to the swishing songs of a field of sorghum

and pretend they are prayers. But for a handful
             of people tucked away in the obscure fringes,

the peasants, of the North, no longer worship us.
             If their silences are bricks,

the disappearing auras of
             shrines would be the most glorious sanctuary.

Here, I see tomatoes grow. And the wind touches me 
             with hands of past affection. I cry Nourish me

the way sunlight nourishes tomato fruits
             hovelling in the shades of leaves. Silence is gentle.

And the vast meadows are all mine,
             but what is the joy of gloating when there is no one

to see any of my glamour? We fathered them.
             And as fathers do, we’ve lost them

to the winds. We can hear
             the laughter of their children,

children who have forgotten all about us.
             Every night, around a fire, we are the villains

in the stories they’re told. I touch the grasses 
             under the sky. The chirping stops

almost as abruptly as it began. The crickets are rattled, 
             a clamor-dust, a decayed presence

spun around as the air offers no help
             to the hunger of prowling eagles. I want to go home

to the empty shrines and temple. I want to go home 
             to the headlamps of affection, those prayers

we turned away with no real consideration.
             It’s a sea of green, each blade standing at devotion,

in various shades of emerald and chartreuse.
             At the lowest rung of grasses, soft and lush,

a gentle cushion underfoot as I walk, 
             whispering Nothing can keep me

from my ritual. At night I close my eyes and lay my body 
             on a mat of meadows. I am halfway up

a ramp. Where are the prayers. Where are the stars.
             I am still the ardent vista

balled over at the end of things. The cities are changing names, 
             the people too. The soil,

tiny pebbles,
             fertile earth, crumbles beneath my fingers,

welcoming roots of wildflowers.
             The ruffles in them are taut. With their shiny new gods

and the seeds of future and current destruction, 
             white foreigners are here.

I can feel the slightly damp rubbles of their plunder. 
             The hills, the slumbering sentinels are awake,

dancing away, their rugged peaks
             crowned with wildflowers. We are the hills,

we are the sentinels—and this is still the age
             of tsafi,  of dark magic,	and no miracles.

Read more from Issue 22.2.