Going into battle, we carry no shield.
Playing in concert, unaware
Of the beat or the melody.
We have become grains in the ground underfoot,
Fold on fold, layers of love, nothing else.
Obliterated, as when the eye medicine
Is no longer even a powder,
Then it cures sight.
An accident gradually gets accepted
As the thing that needed to happen.
There is nothing worse than staying congealed.
Let your lover dissolve into blood.
Let your heart break into such tiny pieces
It cannot be found.
The moon orb wanes.
Then for three days you could say
That there is no moon.
That is the moon that has drawn
So close to the sun,
It is nowhere, and everywhere.
Send us someone who can sing music
For the soul, though we know
Such longing cannot rise from a lute
Or a tambourine, not from the sun,
Or Venus, or any start.
As day comes, give back
The night-fantasy things you stole.
Admit your arrogance as the stars to at dawn.
When the sun goes down, Venus begins bragging,
Claiming light, arguing her loveliness
Over the moon’s. Jupiter lifts a gold coin
From his bag. Mars shows his blade
To Saturn, Mercury sits on a high throne
And gives himself successive titles.
That is how it goes in the middle
Of the night. Then dawn. Jupiter
Is suddenly poor. Mars and Saturn
Have no plans. Venus and the moon
Run away, broken and terrified.
Then the sun within the sun enters,
And this night-and-day talk
Seems a meaningless convention,
The lighting business.
A true holy day for a man or a woman
Is the one when they bring themselves
As the sacrifice.
When Shams shone his light from nowhere,
I felt a holiday without limits begin
Where once was just a person.