The blue of depth is sadness and the depth of blue-sadness and a star quivering tears in this space- Language at the peak of clarity unfurls the night . . . Indeed, the moment is wounded by a dream to finish the questioning, and departs burdened by the prophets and the neighing of memories to come. * * * The blue of depth is sadness and the depth of blue-sadness. and we are nothing but it. Are we in its mirror, or is it in ours? It's all the same . . . The silence of my woman is salt on my voice, bearing the meaning of the wound, and the name of the river, but her hands are my two shores. Her silence is the foot of a turquoise mountain- How my voice assassinates me at night in its direction to prayer and recants a martyr to witness what I don't see! Twilight of rose that forgetfulness wounds-this sadness my mother is its mother . . . wind at the last flute spelling the river so we can run- its willow the child flowing after us like an echo of the call to prayer. Oh, mother, I said: who between us is sadder you . . . or the river . . . or the lightning between my hands? She whispered to me folding me upon a moist eyelash: -After us comes the dove -After us? My voice colored her, holding the moon back from its time, two skies bent over in the palms of her hands, and she urged: Oh, my son, Sadness began its first names with us and overflowed since the desert- Sand hangs loosely over the memory and a memory hangs the black over the humble white and the white over the widespread black to watch over embers by the ashes since trees inscribed poetry and life in the land's copy book- Indeed, from exile to exile- in between which commentaries on the country have grown longer since the blood of an East split to present us Damascus. And so we summarize the wheat and the wisdom. Two lines slowly we repeat creation from the beginning, not to sleep. * * * Which spirit flutters this night in the sails of the infinite, or over its masts? The sand grouse has passed into thought God passes in sadness, a distant woman passes, silence and meaning pass, and a sail already passed announcing the journey on a rainy day, Oh, this soil . . . who reckons my thoughts? My daughter's two eyes echo the trilling cries of joy at evening. And a sash of the recitation of clouds- she can awaken vision and tears in the eyes of the blind. She lowers eyelashes more savory than slumber stealing the bird between its wings, and a heart from the hands of my mother, and shackles from my hands and she considered the intention of a dream the sadness smiling a little as she saw a mother's downfall the past following in its wake- a father-torn down more than ruins This-his night confounds the stars-six gallows from which a tree, horses, and odes dangle- Oh, this soil-who but you begins other than at the end! Captivity is this which your spirit conceals . . . and the spring the lover bathes in . . . And the distant Iraqi voice is captured by the shadow pouring forth torrential sweetness- This is what the likely captive said- He saw me casting lots and went on: -Has the hand of sadness knocked at your door? He loosened the binding ties from memory that shone like silver: This is my woman, my sorrow- How often does she come? How often do I go to it? Its night is the lightning that awakens the secrets of prophecies and recites them like rain- it was in the beginning and we were it . . . So name it, then, the playing of music, and name me string. I said, you are still on the bank and the river is flowing. Be with the river and see the sadness as god sees it. His mother is distant behind the balconies Like a tree discovering the wind and digging deep into the soul's soil. Its cup forgiveness, as far as it goes, and the flood, insofar as it can, and poetry its echo. Its cup is the rain of the inside, until sinner and saint are equal in this attire and the volcano offers him a toast for the final escape Tadmor Prison, 1992