renunciation

by kazim ali from the far mosque

                        "the sailor cannot see the north -- but knows the needle can --"



the books were all torn apart, sliced along the spines
light filled all the openings that she in her silence renounced

still: her handwriting on the papers remembered us to her
the careful matching of the papers' edges was a road back

one night muhummad was borne aloft by a winged horse
taken from the near mosque to the far mosque

each book likens itself to lichen,
stitching softly to tree trunks, to rocks

what was given into the prophet's ears that night:
a changing of directions -- now all the scattered tribes must pray.

wonder well foundry, well sunborn, sundered and sound here
well you be found here, foundered and found

prayer

by kazim ali

Denuded and abandoned I recite
but what do I want
To rise again from the ocean
or be buried alive in the surge and sleep
To be a fearsome range in a single body
or to wind my unity down into depth
Missing in action, ghost-like
bobbing in the distance
Singing psalms to terrify myself
into deciding:
So long liberation
My time in the world was
only a gesture
My body a lonely
stranger
an ache
I never knew

vase

by kazim ali from the fortieth day

he wrote to you once, night's cold i,
storm-broken branches,

here in this room on the galaxy's edge.

he wrote to you twice, sun-yellow dusk,
midnight enameled vase,

snow-blue shelf in the sky.

he wrote to you three times,
and the nothing inside flew up,

a listless prisoner, tethered, a spy.