*
We return by a slow love
for the leaving was rushed
shoulders were not yet revived
and mouths not yet closed
on the words of bitter hope
nor arms and stones
on the emptiness and the earth
Now there will only be this land
to hear our supplication
for the houses have all fallen
and in the houses
the rooms now lie empty and vain
almost inhuman
*
*
Like a soft jazz the open road
chases away all the blues
we will sleep thirty metres above
the ocean and come what may
already the future is a diamond
whistling in our ears
sometimes you disappear mid-day
to wander alone through my territory
and the uninhabited pictures of my childhood
you my love in the blazing sun
at the heart of the irreparable
you dictate gestures of appeasement
to this land
*
*
Over and over the ocean rises up
and reorders its waves in careful lines
but in the sand footprints
released from the eye’s gaze
have escaped into the fathomless
memory of the land
they tell the story of children
who played here long ago
their body and their soul
inscribed in a strange alphabet
it is the babbled novel look
look! it is we who are
the engravers forever engraved
the test and the testament
on the star in its wanderings
it is this beach illuminated by time
that speaks of us the absent ones
on continents dispersed
*
*
Like a long lost relic
you bring my trembling
confused face to the sediments
my ancestral home is covered
with familiar calligraphy but
you know nothing of the disaster
that lurks beneath each stroke
Though we hold the heavens
in our outstretched hands
in songs of carefree indifference
there will always be this land
solemn and majestic
and when all is said and done
it will be our tombstone our one
our sole privilege
*
*
I am afraid I no longer know
how to shape words shed tears
this strange thing is it my tongue?
I feel bodies roll behind my lips
how do they do it?
those who keep the whole world
clasped between their teeth
do they talk with their mouth full?
do they moan? and by what path
do they reach their fellow creatures?
*
*
Let me feel at last
the blinding white light
take me to the ancient shore
and leave me
leave me to the plenitude
relinquish me
I will be that prostrate form
ear tight against the sand
imploring the earth to take
back its remnant of atoms
then come for me
when the new moon rises
I will sleep when life has
reclaimed my body