From “North of the Earth”

what was there to cover

the face of the village littered with baskets of bronze shouldered by the young as they slowly trod along the new cement roads not a single child under the shade of a tree to wave their parents to eat from the fields

a river of rust brightly black under the moon he heard their heartbeats or was it the moon or the cold of a rain near dawn

a rivulet of words trickled on a page then flickered under the kerosene light his hair grew long waving outside the window the earth was breathing

the far mounds under cover of the moon

carrots meats shredded mixed in bean-made vermicelli past spring festival happiness mixed in fire cracks that he no longer missed

no return to a place called home

a train of thought-threads woven snaking around word after word until a world birthed another world

sing and let sing

he wrote across nights when words flowered on a page of poetry that attracted the company of flowers

outside his night window a world was lit as he looked through

a strange feeling of blue that night could not cover that night wound its way to the heart burning

in the confinement of the body a shade of blue burst within a shade of blue gleaming her ponytail weighing heavy on his lids

night eyes were staring in the pane then blurred by a thorn tree shriveled in red

was red the shade of love