to nightfall, always to carry an anchor bolted to my leg to make sure I
will drown if thrown off a bridge by a wandering gymnast

to accept transmigration on whatever terms, even if as a patch of weeds
used as a receptacle for kitchen slops, or as an orphaned duck crying his
incontinence through the house, or the open hand of a leaf blown onto
the path at twilight, its intricate web of veins receiving the entire
weight of the sky

to the bricks that burn in the fireplace, to the kindling scattered in
the yard, to the re-invention of warmth

to the road beyond Paestum where the absolute chill ensures every
traveler will be lost

to the pure openness of your gaze even if in the faces of other women

to beds shared for a night or for years, and all the hollow places of
the world where there is no one but rain and time

to mice that congregate after nightfall, to the meticulous otters,
pigeons and a stork who stayed behind, wading through a river that comes from
the first days of the earth

to the spikes of the prickly-pear fruit, to appleblossoms

to an old woman dead now in a brothel on Samos

to the stones of the road, to a wooden bridge that slanted beyond the
furthest mountains, to a certain tree that measured the halfway point
from the village school to home

to count stars accurately, to avoid quarrels with birds, to leave the
eagle his  right to distance and unpredictable vengeance

to make bread before dawn, to wash the feet of wanderers, to leave a
portion of each page blank  that the Invisible may write their messages to us,
to each other

to the blazing fullness of midday entering the harbour at Alexandria,
to the fortress of Sardis where the walls glow pink with the last of light
failing

to a dark-eyed widow from Tyre and her three children, our few shared
days on the caravan to Yezhd, her listless silence louder than the snorting
of horses, to whatever became of her

to the simple naming of losses, the grammar of obligations and the
wordless empty languages scattered in all places by beauty

to the wheat with its hunger for one more day of sun, to the grape
grown clouded and chill as mist across the fields at daybreak

to the crows of autumn, at all times to scan the shadows in the sunlit
pool, to know how gold is the last moment before brown, to scavenge life from
the bleak edge of survival

to the port of Agrigentum, to the olive groves on the hills around
Malea

to my sister who carried her three brothers across the roof of the
collapsing city

to the dead that they forgive us, to the unborn that the road be no
more broken

to a certain map of the world that showed how every place is infinite

to daybreak, thin trees and the winter sun


(Anonymous, from texts found in the Nestorian monastery in Bactria)

 

 

Copyright @ Peter Boyle, 2006