Tuesday, March 13, 2012

To Robert Frost

you have been acquainted with the night
I have known the night
you have walked out in the rain and back in the rain
I have stood in the desert looking for the rain
you have out-walked the furthest city light
I have out-walked the allays without the light

you have looked down the saddest city lane
I have looked at the neighborhood with pain
you have passed by the watchman on his beat
I have seen them and took their beat
and you dropped your eyes, unwilling to explain
I never dropped my eyes yet they launch a complain

you stood still and stopped the sound of feet
when far away an interrupted cry
came over houses from another street
I stood still but couldn’t stop
the sound of a cockroach’s feet
when I pleaded with carriage with my cry
when they banquet on the babe’s blood across the street

if you were not called back or none came to say good-bye
and you knew further still at an unearthly height
one luminary clock against the sky
will proclaim the time as neither wrong nor right
I join you in praises I too I’m acquainted with the night

Remembering Sendai

last night the waves came
crashing in breaking through the gates
running in and out of the cooking places
collecting the firewood from the hearths
turning sleeping places into swimming pools
and where once stood Dad’s radiogram
is now the assembly of the eternal hum of angry waves

we watched the waves come in last night
we saw their anger dispensed at our doorsteps
we heard the weeping the sobbing
the deep and low moans
and wondered mournfully why God deserted us
Amina lost the trinkets
the only memory of her Grandma
Angelina stood outside her compound
shivering from the cold with her hands on her breasts
where can she find her children
where once we called home
and tendered the goats and fowls of Grandpa
we have lost to the angry water of cruel waves

the waves came in last night
it took away our joy forever
yet when we looked at the sky so blue
the sun shining so bright
and wondered mournfully
why the long blades of grass beneath our feet
sway in the bumpy breeze
dancing in rhythms with so much ease
while we shiver in the cold
weeping and sobbing
in deep and low moans
when the waves came last night