About a month ago three Taliban hit men shot 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai in the head on her way to school. Not only did she survive, but she is expected to fully recover and has already asked for her schoolbooks so that she can continue her studies.
To whom shall I turn to inspire
My heart to rise like a spire
Or connect to a wire
Coursing with electric fire?
Mystery eludes the firmament;
The unbeliever rejoices, yet certitude
Is but a pause, the prelude
To an inexplicable and joyous lament.
The sheets do not talk. The warm breeze
does not know that autumn is near;
The language of premonition
Is burrowed like a fossil in my pillow.
A book of poems
Flowers from my devotion;
Water floods my heart,
Meeting an ancient emotion.
Deep below the soil dark,
Beyond a shovel’s reach,
Who I was before you saw me
Spreads out like an immortal beach.
The tides may harm but not touch
My heart of mild slopes;
But you, with your burrowed beauty,
Nuzzle to form my cragged hopes.
With rhythms varied I will write:
Lovers everywhere kiss
Lovers anywhere, and so
I give you this canon of bliss.
Written on Tuesday, November 18th, 2003
Here I love you, between the bandage
And the blood.
A shard of glass has split
The sexual union of your skin.
Here I love you, between the wound
And the stain.
Your heart has seen an injured dream
Reborn in a drop of blood.
Here I love you, between the healing
And the pain.
I have held you by your joy
And now I hold you by your sadness:
And here I love you, between my hand
And your hand.
Written on September 10th, 2003
While seated in meditation
You walked past my shut eyes,
My face in peaceful repose,
My still body, more still than a garden.
As the first light stirs
Not a single word is spoken:
Your arms seek me beneath the covers.
My soul finds you beyond the clouds.
I love you, though it pains,
And the pain to me shows
Exalted mountains, expansive plains
Where once I chose
To lie, somnambular and closed.