by Agha Shahid Ali
By dark the world is once again intact,
Or so the mirrors, wiped clean, try to reason. . .
–James Merrill
This dream of water–what does it harbor?
I see Argentina and Paraguay
under a curfew of glass, their colors
breaking, like oil. The night in Uruguay
is black salt. I’m driving toward Utah,
keeping the entire hemisphere in view–
Colombia vermilion, Brazil blue tar,
some countries wiped clean of color: Peru
is titanium white. And always oceans
that hide in mirrors: when beveled edges
arrest tides or this world’s destinations
forsake ships. There’s Sedona, Nogales
far behind. Once I went through a mirror–
from there too the world, so intact, resembled
only itself. When I returned I tore
the skin off the glass. The sea was unsealed
by dark, and I saw ships sink off the coast
of a wounded republic. Now from a blur
of tanks in Santiago, a white horse
gallops, riderless, chased by drunk soldiers
in a jeep; they’re firing into the moon.
And as I keep driving in the desert,
someone is running to catch the last bus, men
hanging on to its sides. And he’s missed it.
He is running again; crescents of steel
fall from the sky. And here the rocks
are under fog, the cedars a temple,
Sedona carved by the wind into gods–
each shadow their worshiper. The siren
empties Santiago; he watches
–from a hush of windows–blindfolded men
blurred in gleaming vans. The horse vanishes
into a dream. I’m passing skeletal
figures carved in 700 B.C.
Whoever deciphers these canyon walls
remains forsaken, alone with history,
no harbor for his dream. And what else will
this mirror now reason, filled with water?
I see Peru without rain, Brazil
without forests–and here in Utah a dagger
of sunlight: it’s splitting–it’s the summer
solstice–the quartz center of a spiral.
Did the Anasazi know the darker
answer also–given now in crystal
by the mirrored continent? The solstice,
but of winter? A beam stabs the window,
diamonds him, a funeral in his eyes.
In the lit stadium of Santiago,
this is the shortest day. He’s taken there.
Those about to die are looking at him,
his eyes the ledger of the disappeared.
What will the mirror try now? I’m driving,
still north, always followed by that country,
its floors ice, its citizens so lovesick
that the ground–sheer glass–of every city
is torn up. They demand the republic
give back, jeweled, their every reflection.
They dig till dawn but find only corpses.
He has returned to this dream for his bones.
The waters darken. The continent vanishes.
A Nostalgist’s Map of America
Copyright ©:
1991, W. W. Norton and Company
A few random poems:
- Poems, Potatoes by Sylvia Plath
- It was an April morning: fresh and clear by William Wordsworth
- Николай Гербель – Изюмцам
- Tryin’ On Clothes by Shel Silverstein
- Remorse For Intemperate Speech by William Butler Yeats
- Autumn by Walter Savage Landor
- Tube Station
- To A Friend Whose Work Has Come To Nothing by William Butler Yeats
- Birds Calling in the Ravine by Wang Wei
- The Waradgery Tribe by Mary Gilmore
- The Harvest Moon by Ted Hughes
- Poem
- Sonnet 108: What’s in the brain that ink may character by William Shakespeare
- The Hut
- Наум Коржавин – Мой ритм заглох
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Sonnet. On A Picture Of Leander poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet: Oh! How I Love, On A Fair Summer’s Eve poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet IX. Keen, Fitful Gusts Are poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet IV. How Many Bards Gild The Lapses Of Time! poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet III. Written On The Day That Mr. Leigh Hunt Left Prison poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet II. To ****** poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet. If By Dull Rhymes Our English Must Be Chain’d poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet I. To My Brother George poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet: Before He Went poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet: As From The Darkening Gloom A Silver Dove poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet: After Dark Vapors Have Oppress’d Our Plains poem – John Keats poems
- Sonnet. A Dream, After Reading Dante’s Episode Of Paulo And Francesca poem – John Keats poems
- Song. Written On A Blank Page In Beaumont And Fletcher’s Works poem – John Keats poems
- Song Of Four Faries poem – John Keats poems
- Song. I Had A Dove poem – John Keats poems
- Song. Hush, Hush! Tread Softly! poem – John Keats poems
- Sharing Eve’s Apple poem – John Keats poems
- Otho The Great – Act V poem – John Keats poems
- Otho The Great – Act IV poem – John Keats poems
- Otho The Great – Act III poem – John Keats poems
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works