Song for Refugees

Ooze, oud. Ease hearts whose eyes sink low.

Be hourglass in the pillaged O—.

Be wells none see. Unstoppered tears,

O oud, we gather in your bowl.

O ladle of ores, scoop ink here

now seeping from the foreigner,

be sighs, O oud, and cloven aches

in the dark of millions of ears.

Be gift for famished wails and wakes

to lacks and flares and tented stakes,

the lonely outer sounds of sleeves

eating wind and drowning faces.

The oud’s a lovely ark that leaks

with tales and bromides we can’t keep,

and miles of ghosts before their sleep.

And miles of ghosts beneath our sleep.