The Unconsoled

Oh won’t you reach out and let your lips rest against my hair

The lightest touch will do, like the last breath of starlight in the morning air
I will stand still if you wish, so still you will hardly even know I’m there
I will stand still – so let your fingers drift where they will
and take all the measure of my upward, undefended face. So still, so still and so small, the smallest knot of yearning that’s ever been
and all turned trembling towards the sun of you. Will you not touch me? Nor cast some quickening smile my way? At least, then,
spare me the barest whisper of a prayer;
or some glancing kindness in some straying thought. I see your face
all full of desert days and no shelter anywhere; and though I know
I must fight to save myself, I fear that I am stronger than myself
and none of me can ever be
stronger than you. So if you must look,
see me not with the bleached airfield of your glare
Turn down those eyes; call back, call back
the wild exigency of your hate
I see it always straining at the breaking gate
and I cannot move past its yellow stare.
In dreams I see your eyes, lovely with the streaking rain,
I am breaking in the piteous dark. For heaven’s sake, find me.
Touch me. See me, want me, claim me;
Sound the one pure eternal note of me.
Hold me close to you again.

The Contingent World

 

The radio in the house next door

duets with the one in the house

opposite. A dog whines low. Tonight

I think of the unendurable losses we sustain

as the price of living. How they sunder us irrevocably

from the past, from our previous selves: you were here then,

now you are gone. I was whole then; now I am riven.

 

How we carry them always within us, a low-grade fever that lies

quiescent for weeks and then flares up, reckoning angel, in

an innocent moment. A photo falls out of the pages of a

book, a song dreams out at me from a doorway and

I am losing you, them, all over again. You are not

here; I cannot be there. Anymore. Immutable,

implacable knowledge.

 

 

The wind bleeds into the night; the young Buddha walks out

from his sheltered palace into the world, a constellation

dies away and cannot be replaced. The things that live

are mirrors of the ones we grieve for. A dog barks:

I think of the beloved dog I no longer have – the

silk of his ears; the level weight of his gaze –

 

Other dogs bark back; now the radios intone the

news to each other in a low hum. Down the street,

through the night, across loss and change, connection thrills.

Through my losses am I imprinted more resolutely into the contingent

world, am I able to take more of it into me. Now the radios fall

silent, now the wind fades gently away; and now, rising like

a promise behind the clouds – almost a buddhist moon.

 

 

My Mother’s Garden

My mother’s garden questions even

the light. There is a steadiness to it,

a calm waiting, and whatever blows

or sighs or shines through it; what

ever falls or rises must know, in

the end, this inquiry. My mother’s garden

throws all back upon itself. Light

skims off the green to meet itself

in the sky; trees lean over the pool

and watch themselves ripple and

wave. And you, my love, standing at

the edge of the patio, staring

at the colours of the rising sky: for you too

there can be no exception. My mother’s garden

throws you back upon your lost

spirit, whatever has been broken or betrayed

gazes at you in all its awful loneliness. Nothing

can be hidden in this light. But in my

mother’s garden the breeze that moves

gently through the trees knows no

differences; it touches everyone. And

even the shadows find sometimes

that they have been seen, and gathered

by the light.

 

Alina Rastam