Why are you sitting there like a bereaved woman
forgotten by the world
near the tent of condolence on the Jordan’s banks?
The people used to call it a river,
but now it’s only called Sharia, a name
that falls short, that fails
to cleanse the body of a dead goddess.
What’s this miserable death that waylays us
only in times of drought?
I told her: I saw you always leaving,
always coming back,
your departure’s no departure,
your return is no return.
(The earth does not bear you,
the sky cannot contain you.)
I asked her:
Couldn’t you have gone
and never come back?
Since I first set foot here
I knew this land was dead
and that all these creations were ancient ghosts
like me and you.

Hear the howling rend the darkness,
look at the light and how it cannot see us,
feel around for your footsteps
in these valleys that split apart of their own accord.
Take comfort in this, try
to have love fill you with oblivion.

A star from the land of the dead
follows you to the land of nativity.
Your suffering’s not over—
there’s another birth to come.