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The Call
In the tumult of nations
you too tumbled down
all your fabled wealth beggared
in two hundred years.
Of
your many descendants, I
am like a missing valuable
unrelinquished yet by hope:
voices in the wind and fire
assure me I am only misplaced
not lost.
In the frantic search
for the past, the mind throbs
like an skinned wound, and
unsteady fingers still grope
familiar places.
Even
this twilight reveals
cracks in the old fort wall.
The wretched stones, wailing
like inconsolable widows, once again
outstretch their leprous arms;
the marble facades gape at me silently,
stained with the pus of gouged-out
precious stones.
Once again
at the chamber of private audience--
"If there is heaven on earth,
It is this, it is this, it is this,"
I repeat to myself
and depart.
