innocents.
I grieve the little people.
Along comes a government,
and it steals their sheep
to support the cause
of the little people.
Along comes the next government,
and the two or three scraggly ewes
the little people hid against hunger
get swept up by the liberators.
And every government after
swallows the people's substance
in the name of the people.
In the end the little people
never have sheep enough.
Their granaries are empty.
Rat turds wither
where their grain was stored.
And so they die,
slowly or swiftly,
but always in terror.
God, if You are,
help the little people
keep their sheep,
keep their grains,
keep their lives.
God, if You are,
cleanse us of religion,
cleanse us of politics,
walk with us
to gather wool
and bake bread.
God, if You are...
Images of Afghanistan
The television
shows me deserts
barren as moonscapes.
A game of polo,
played horseback
with a goat carcass
for a ball raises
yellow dust
that obscures the players
like ghosts in a dream.
There are no trees
on these mountains.
Grass does not grow
in their ravines.
The skies are brown
or gray with dust.
I wonder how
anything lives
where nothing grows.
If something dies
in this wind-scoured place,
a sheep or a man,
is the corpse
mummified,
freeze dried,
or pulverized
by the airborne grit?
Misty Gorge on the Yangtze
Before our ship sampans,
behind our ship sampans,
under us brown water
roiling with propeller wakes.
Snake kite and fish kite
wheel on the wind astern.
Green cliffs on either side
rise to dark blue peaks.
Sunset washes blue-gray mists
with watery rose.
Around a bend, ten men tall,
a white Buddha stands on a hill.
Sunset is pink on Buddha’s brow.
A thousand broken steps below
a man drops his net in the river.
Sampans precede us.
Sampans follow us.
Twilight shades the gorge
into the starless night sky.
Buddha glimmers in shadows behind us
more ghost than Bhodisattva.
The dinner gong calls us
to banquet on duck,
chopsticks flashing
amid the chatter
of glittering people.
Yellow Mountain
Yellow Mountain has many bridges;
at every one our guide
provides a mournful story
of parent-parted lovers plunging
onto the rocks below.
I look over the rail for bones
tumbled in the ravines.
I see bushes and rocks,
and a silver thread of water
between the drifting mists.
Ah, well, the tales are set
in the T’ang or Chin or Han,
some dynasty older than bones
and dimmer than mist.
I look up at rocky fingers
scribbling clouds in the sky.
I wonder what they write,
these unmoving fingers,
on the blue paper heavens.
Do they record the histories
of lovers untimely dead?
The guide urges us on.
No time to decipher the clouds.
We’ve more bridges to cross,
more suicidal loves to hear of,
a gift shop to visit for the shopping,
and a bus that will not wait for us.
World Cuisine
In Chungqing
chicken with chilies.
In Chihuahua,
chilies with chicken.
In Paris, snails,
leeks in Wales
and in London
overdone
Brussels sprouts.
In Naples pizza
in Cairo tabouleh,
at home
MacDonald’s.
Afternoon at Machu Picchu
The wind whispers
through the grasses.
The small flowers
seeded between
the stones of the walls
dance blue and mauve
arabesques against
the gray and black lichen.
I look into the mist
to scan for ghosts
of the builders and see
neither priest nor servant.
only the remnants
of temples and altars.
I listen to the stones
fitted together to make this place.
I would hear the whispers
of those who built it.
Only the wind
whispers here
and it tells me nothing.
Cruising Musing
Lying on my bed
eating chocolate mummies
with peanut faces
as palm trees
on the Nile banks
glide past the cruiser’s
picture window,
I wonder if the fish
that ate the penis of Osiris
ever found another worm
so satisfying.
The Sphinx
I’ve been to see the Sphinx
ochre stone majesty
thrust against the hard
blue of desert sky.
Behind it rise the pyramids
and mystic desert horizon.
The gawkers cluster at its feet,
wrinkling their noses against
the pervasive camel dung
and stopping their ears
against the rumble of suburban traffic.
Sales Resistance
In the bazaars,
crying “One dollah!”
the vendors struggle
to grab my attention.
I am proof against them,
I walk the street,
my eyes cast down,
and do not haggle with any.
Later, in the Valley of the Kings,
my resistance crumbles
when a brown-eyed boy
bats his long lashes
and sells me postcards
at an inflated price.
Temple Dogs
Gaunt temple dogs
scratch the fleas playing soccer
on their xylophone ribs.
Swollen bellies and swollen teats
suggest pups, but all the dogs
I see are older, worn away
like the carved columns
whose shade they seek
when the sun is high.
Sunset
The golden sun falls
into the Sahara sands.
Ra is going to sleep.
Black against the sunset
the date palms stand
above the river
littered with glitter.
The call to prayer echoes
over the quiet Nile.
Minarets silhouetted
against the sun stand guard
over streets suddenly hushed
in recognition of God.
T
he Wild Nile Gone
The Nile is tamed;
I saw no crocodiles
swimming in the dark green waters.
“They’re gone,” the guide said,
“from all the lower river,
hunted to extinction
north of the Aswan Dam,
though they frolic in numbers
upriver in the Nubian Sea.”
How tame this Nile is,
a channel for cruising ships
and floating ducks.
Dare one hope the fishes
still prowl the riverbed
looking for bits of gods
other gods discarded?
The Pylon Carvings
Cut deep in the temple pylons,
the temple walls. Around them
royal and divine cartouches
identify the players
Lines of ducks and papyrus plants
clutter the borders.
How wonderful, then, to see
two figures floating free
their spines on the diagonal
as though they dance to songs
the wind plays in the ruins.
The guide says they are gods
and names them. I prefer
to think they’re portraits
of astronaut architects
who drew the temple plans
and laid the stones on the stones,
then carved their pictures
to sign their work.
Religions
Mosques built on churches
raised on synagogues
built on temples of Horus,
plaster saints painted
over carven deities
in the shadow of minarets,
the monuments of Egypt
sink into the mud
heavy with religions.
In the streets the people
come and go, buy and sell,
copulate and eat, despite
the gods, living and dead.
Machu Picchu Rain
From our shelter
in a thatch-roofed hut
we survey the city.
A sudden rain
has waxed the worn
stone stairs
between the levels.
Like broken butterflies
tourists in colored ponchos
stumble over the terraces.
The llamas stride,
sure of foot,
over the grass
and around the walls
the Incas built.
Below us the clouds
open to show
the Urubamba,
a brown ribbon
through the green
cloud-forest canyon.
The rain hushes
the drone of the guides
describing the pasts
that might have been.
Cairo Streets
Donkeys and Datsuns
travel the same road.
The Datsuns have horns
that bray loudly and often.
The donkeys are quieter.
They bray seldom,
too tired, perhaps,
to comment on the traffic.
Over the discord
loudspeakers float
the call to prayer.
It’s like a melody
played on a flute
above a modern
dissonant chord progression
played by basses and tubas.