A River Dies of Thirst

scene is the same as ever. Summer and sweat, and an imagination incapable of seeing beyond the horizon. And today is better than tomorrow. But the dead are what’s new. They’re born every day and when they’re trying to sleep death takes them away from their drowsiness into a sleep without dreams. It’s not worth counting them. None of them asks for help from anyone. Voices search for words in the open country, and the echo comes back clearly, woundingly: ‘There’s nobody here.’

Even if you were not the absence you are, I would be the presence I am

Tomorrow does not concern me. It’s an idea
that does not seduce me. I am what I am: nothing
will change me, just as I will change
nothing, so don’t keep the sun off me!

‘Tomorrow I will climb a higher hill to see the sea beyond the settlements. But I will strap my shadow to me so I don’t lose it again.’

A voice without words rocks me, kneads me and forms me into a vessel which exudes a substance neither from it nor in it, like a feeling searching for someone to feel it.

Individuals, if they wake up alive, can still say ‘Good morning,’ then go off to their normal jobs: burying the dead.

Apart from that, abnormal life appears to be running its normal course.

Rebel against me as much as you can, and run
for there’s nothing behind us except what’s behind.’

A river was here
and it had two banks
and a heavenly mother who nursed it on drops from the clouds
A small river moving slowly
descending from the mountain peaks
visiting villages and tents like a charming lively guest
bringing oleander trees and date palms to the valley
and laughing to the nocturnal revellers on its banks:
‘Drink the milk of the clouds
and water the horses
and fly to Jerusalem and Damascus’
Sometimes it sang heroically
at others passionately
It was a river with two banks
and a heavenly mother who nursed it on drops from the clouds
But they kidnapped its mother
so it ran short of water
and died, slowly, of thirst.

If we were to listen intently to the sound of silence, we would talk less.