A rainless window. And I,
indifferent, parsed the night,
absently twined the wind at ease
between my fingers tracing
the city silhouettes. Contoured
a new night in this newfound
canvas.
Wings
of dormant birds are beating low.
The mind is slow.
The speed of this hand
perpetual in its want to wipe off
the sacrilege of far-off neon-lights--
surly outlanders of the night.
With the wind the voice
of a waif whose night it is
comes in a slow, broken song.
I know the child, I know
the passerby who cut him off.
I know the city’s skyline divides
the night,
this night I don’t know, can’t remember.
It must rain tonight.
For me to write it must.
Wash this window off its obscenities,
off the cities and off their lights
of filths, and flashes, and flames.
Where is the love in this?
Where are the Persian poets
of love? One can only wake up
in muslin mornings and feel Hafez gaze
at a similar silken air,
twining the same wind
in knowing fingers.
And mornings become
of memories of tombstones…
you, who is cast away
from man and sanctioned company
you, who here must assay
Love: this be your sanctuary.
And it must rain this dawn.
For me to live it must.
The city must hang
in the camera obscura,
the moon a mere fresco
in a moonspurned room.
- Symphony
