Blue

In that first harsh winter of the war

I dreamt a great pear of a man, day-star ripened

in red cotton

and greenish brocade, upon the 26th night

of a not actual difficult fast, was

presenting to me thirty-two

separate gifts of gold

Each carried a fragment of verse

The first was spotless and formal, but the test

on this cerulean night of sohbet,

was to make his remaining offerings

increasingly vulgar,

more the desperate prayers of a sincere blasphemer?

There was something here of the weight of a life

and the breathless exercise of stairs.

For the dying melvana

there was the admonition of his lover

not to enumerate the heavy kisses

falling like coins onto his beard; not

to number the counting, as with the days,

rising integers of nothing,

going nowhere; just

look on him

in simple praise of what it is that increases

for that is exactly what will, in secret

be taken away.

Copyright World poesy Incorporated Sep/Oct 2004

Provided by means of ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved