TABLETS II, Dunya Mikhail

Tablets II

 

1

I close my eyes and I see a dot.

It becomes a spot of light.

It grows into the size of a person

who distances away

until it returns to a spot of light,

a dot.

 

2

Like communion bread,

your words dissolve in my mouth

and never die.

 

3

I don’t care under which sky—

just sing your song till the end.

 

4

The bone-city I am choked by

is also salt

also sugar

also boiling water

in the kettle with no lid.

 

5

Ask not how many houses were built.

Ask how many residents remained in the houses.

 

6

The flame opens like a giant plant

swallowing them one by one

with their lost and found sheep.

 

7

She whose song

has no beginning

nor end –

She whose voice

faded into stars and moons –

Where’s she?

Where’s she?

 

 

8

Dreams come in two types:

vertical and horizontal.

Tell me the shape of your dream

and I will tell you where you come from.

 

9

Fire and light

both sting.

We go to sleep when the other half

of the globe wakes up.

Night and day

crammed with dreams.

 

10

Your look

passes through me

like lightening

 

11

The butterfly that flew a moment ago

over the killed ones

was the soul

searching for home.

 

12

Our time together

has ripened

and smashed like berries.

 

13

Can your camera capture

fear in the eyes

of mother-sparrow, see

the broken eggs in her eyes?

 

14

A little air means so much for the bird.

In the air, a full world extends.

The clouds gather and then separate.

The leaves wave to each other.

For the bird, everything hangs in the air.

 

15

The pomegranate seeds

scattered with our steps

were not from heaven.

 

16

My paper boat that drifted into the river

with the world behind it

had a special note.

It may arrive one day,

although late,

all truths come late.

 

17

Dried leaves

over there

our first yearnings.

 

18

The shoes by the door

will not fit them when they return.

 

19

She counts the pebbles by her fingers.

the other pebbles under water

are losses outside her hands.

 

20

Specks of sand

scattered

from the fingers

our people.

 

21

The sun reveals

a hole in the boat,

a glow in the fins

of fish still breathing.

 

22

the day and the night

divide our steps on the road

as they equally

divide the world.

 

23

I was born.

I write poetry.

I will die.

 

24

Her shadow

is still here

feeding the birds.

 

To learn more about award winning poet Dunya Mikhail, please read her interview in issue N. 1 of The Dreaming machine http://www.thedreamingmachine.com/a-cloud-rain-memory-and-an-accent-an-interview-with-dunya-mikhail-by-kalpna-singh-chitnis/

 

Featured image: Photo by Aritra sanyal.