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 https://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.
