POETRY

In the first trembling steps of a lute string

      I see your face,

            Resplendent as the moon

In whose light I hear the echo of your call

      As it rises—ah! so graceful—from the blood-stained scene

      Given wing by noble plumage of green—

And this radiant visage soaring aloft in an arc of flight

Upwards—ah! and on, onto the ecstasy of the infinite—

      Bestows a kindly glance on me, and sings:

“To the encampments of scoundrels

      To the gathering-places of thieves

      —I stand witness—

To the guns and the chains

      To the clubs and the blades

      —I stand witness—

To the false, real bitterness of those tears

      Clad in the matt, choking metal of a canister

      —I stand witness—

To the pious weeping of sultans

      Seated in mock solemnity on thrones of lies

      —I stand witness—

To the fires that are kindled

      From the souls of those who rise up

To the fires that burn fiercely

      Giving off no warmth

To the fires whose flames surge up

      Terrible and dark and hard and cold as iron

      —I stand witness.

I am the voice of a candle

      Whispering nervously in the silence

      Of two thousand pairs of boots

      Stamping upon the hopes of millions.

I am the chain of hands and hearts

      Fluttering and fragile as a butterfly in the wind

      Whose flight blunts all blades.

I am the shuddering of the throne of the Almighty

      Furious with compassion.

I am the slender stalk and half-open bud

      Thrust scarcely aware into your hands

      So cruel and yet so delicate, O my brother!

I am the mist of remorse

      That gathers in your uncertain eyes

      That clutches that flower to your heaving chest

      With quivering hands.

I am the tears of my mother, of your mother,

      Of my father, of your father,

      Of you friend, of you beloved,

      Watering the filth of the ground

      That will yield forth the green shoots of fresh melody.

We are the filth and the dirt

      The dust and the splinters

      The detritus beneath your throne, O king!

We are the filth that shines like the dawn

      Dirt that gleams with hope

      Dust that flowers with joy

      Detritus that blooms with new life.

Your throne is dust now, O king,

      Dissolved by the mo(u)rning-dew of our tears.

Your servants desert you, O king,

      Melted to repentance by our songs,

      In victory seeking only to give freely!”

The last murmurs of that tremulous string

      Passed into silence

            Gathered up

Into the moon’s loving embrace and

      Clasped tightly to the warmth of a gently beating heart

      On a sighing breast, in a peace that no poet’s art

Can render or describe. We who remain are finite.

Our souls are rough thread: let them be silk, let them be light

Answering the plaintive joy of that voice

      With a defiant, generous embrace!