Ghazal of the Dust

A tornado churned like a turbine in the dust,
& left a dervish’s swirling design in the dust.

The wind is polishing relics among ruins
That mark an empire’s decline in the dust.

Faint whispers echoed in dissolving shadows
As a zephyr traced a line in the dust.

Spiders are etched on sunlit webs,
Adorning a sultan’s shrine in the dust.

Hawks descend in wide circles, gliding on
Currents of thermals that recline in the dust.

An ocean evaporated, leaving seashells
Scattered along an ancient coastline in the dust.

A nomad’s ghost still treks the desert plains,
Whose silhouette left its outline in the dust.

Teeming with motes & specks of whirling sand,
Refracted bars of late light shine in the dust.

Entering a mirage I watched the breeze’s hands
Sketch an arabesque design in the dust.


Ghazal of Departure  (A Reprise)

A precise moment one may properly sigh in—
Before a prayer meant to silently cry in.

I am walking down a hall of mirrors
In which your images multiply in.

Sometimes deep in the cave of my ear
Is a space your voice begins to amplify in.

The sound of my footsteps dying in an alley…
Your stifled call inviting a passerby in.

You wrote of mariners asleep in tombs of water.
I hold a shell one hears the sea’s lullaby in.

In a dream I summoned you to speak of death’s rapture—
Echoes laced the gleaming dust you sent your reply in.

This loneliness makes me long for you,
& the crypt I will finally lie in.

Sunlight streamed through a cocoon
I saw a sleeping butterfly in.

You stepped like Elijah into a whirlwind
Powerful enough to rein the sky in.


Dream Ghazal

Each night you whisper the secret
That reaches me in sleep.

We swim in phosphorescent water
(When moonlight bleaches the sea) in sleep.

When we parted I dreamt myself a dolphin
Beckoning the wave that beaches me in sleep.

It is my discontented other speaking from mirrors
Who impeaches me in sleep.

When I seek guidance from the affirming Angel
His voice beseeches me in sleep.

Though you are gone, nightly the memory
Of you reaches me in sleep.


Ghazal  (Within You)

Soldiers burned your village
& you harbor that fire within you.

Nights you are sleepless, pacing streets—
When all your doubts conspire within you.

You recall days you were filled with elation,
Hearing Orpheus play his lyre within you.

But now your despair often stifles
Every desire within you.

The thought of your death persists like a secret
Longing, when all striving will expire within you.

& the emptiness you feel is an expanding vortex,
Whirling like a gyre within you.

You ask God why He has left you destitute,
Though your love for Him is entire, within you.

You dreamt the country of phantasmal peace
& have built that empire within you.


Haibun

You have seen Vishnu walking between mountains on bridges
Of lightning.  Last night you found shelter in Kanchenjunga’s
Blue shadow.  With the notes still frozen in your flute,
You listened to the crackle of the fire you tended.
Apprentice in an order whose disciples aim to abide
Nowhere & possess nothing, you have made your way
Through the Tingri plains & into the high passes
Where a cavern houses the toppled statue of Buddha,
His head tilted with an ear to the ground.  On nights
When apparitions spray the silence with voices, when
The scent of incense lingers in the moonlit mist, the
Stone lips of the Buddha begin to speak.  Many have said
His words are indecipherable, others claim he chants
Scripture from The Sermon of Causality, detailing how
A man’s actions continue to affect the world long after
His death.  You now pass the ruins of an ancient monastery,
Approaching the turquoise lake Shiva thawed from
A glacier.  Above the mountains lightning pierces
A rainbow.  You reach into a pouch filled with stones
Of many colors & select one at random to heave
Into the lake’s mirror.

A stone cutting air
Descends into still water
Forming wide ripples