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:
- The Death Of Grant poem – Ambrose Bierce poems | Poems and Poetry
- These Green-Going-to-Yellow by Marvin Bell
- Transcience by Sarojini Naidu
- Untitled XIV by Yunus Emre
- Вера Павлова – У святителя вместо спины
- I sink as I sail magnificently by Michael Nikoletseas
- Sonnet # 18 by Luis A. Estable
- The Riddle
- Lead Soldiers poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- Offerings. by Walt Whitman
- Mother Nature by Walter William Safar
- How I saved Planet Earth by Raj Arumugam
- Robert Burns: Epistle To John Goldie, In Kilmarnock: Author Of The Gospel Recovered.
- Владимир Бенедиктов – Слезы и звуки
- Иннокентий Анненский – Леконт де Лиль. Из стихотворения «Призраки»
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
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 41. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Philip James Bailey. Festus – 44. Филип Джеймс Бэйли.
- English Poetry. Ella Wheeler Wilcox. The Blasphemy of Guns. Элла Уилкокс.
- English Poetry. Algernon Charles Swinburne. The Triumph of Time. Алджернон Чарльз Суинбёрн.
- English Poetry. William Barnes. Second Collection. The Heäre. Уильям Барнс.
- English Poetry. Isaac Watts. Hymn 2. Исаак Уоттс.
- English Poetry. Henry Livingston. To the Memory of Sarah Livingston. Генри Ливингстон.
- English Poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay. Assault. Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей.
- English Poetry. Lucy Maud Montgomery. As the Heart Hopes. Люси Мод Монтгомери.
- English Poetry. Rupert Chawner Brooke. In Examination. Руперт Брук.
- English Poetry. Percy Bysshe Shelley. Satan Broken Loose. Перси Биши Шелли. Тень Ада
- English Poetry. David Herbert Lawrence. Whales Weep Not!. Дэвид Герберт Лоуренс.
- English Poetry. Thomas Aird. The Devil’s Dream on Mount Aksbeck. Томас Эрд.
- English Poetry. George Eliot. How Lisa Loved the King. Джордж Элиот.
- English Poetry. Charles Lockhart. Epistle to a Friend, with a Copy of Burns’s Letters. Чарльз Локкарт. Послание другу при возвращении ему томиков стихов Бернса
- English Poetry. Charles Wesley. Hark! A Voice Divides the Sky. Чарльз Уэсли.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. My Room. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
- English Poetry. John Townsend Trowbridge. Midwinter. Джон Таунсенд Троубридж.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. Dark Glasses. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
- English Poetry. Robert William Service. Dark Glasses. Роберт Уильям Сервис.
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