The Brook
Like Galen even him
The shepherd waiting dies
Orpheus swallows the sun disk
Ishtar shedding tears
Looks for a lost ring
O boats of smoke
On the Euphrates
Whose water sings
A dirge for Tammuz
Aisha she-who-lives
With winter has returned
Returned to the orchard
A stripped willow
Leaf on leaf it weeps
Into the Euphrates
By the keeper of the dead
Its tears are woven
Into a chaplet
For dead love a chaplet
In the world of inbetween
Where Aisha sleeps
Her head cut off
On a cushion
And in the dark of her braids
The rats play and scuttle
Worms devour her eyes
My queen I saw a vision
When thunder clapped
The earth replied
With a cloud of fire
A clawless eagle
Took my breath away
Stripped me naked
Clad my hand
In shell and feathers
A bird's wing an oar
And the eagle guided me
To the keeper of the dead
There discarded crowns
Lay in heaps the doors
Would not close or open
The Lion of the Dust
Had dirt for daily bread
And the sacristan
Of this underworld
Honing his blade shouted
Who has brought to me
This wretched man?
Aisha has returned
To her distant country
A poem on a gravestone
Sayings old and wise
A rhyme of the rarest
A leafless willow
Weeping on the Euphrates
In a cloud of smoke
Day departed
And three or four
After this vision sick I die
My queen like you
Bedded on stone and flame
In blood I write on leaves
Of floating willow
What the fortune teller
Spoke to the wind
To the bird and the ashes
O thin sustenance
Each night to die
Sober and drunk I go
Through houses of the dead
In Babylon through ruins
Along the river shore
Alone
Speak to clouds
Wallow in dust
Shout in despair
From the grave I wait in
Tell the willow
What the fortune teller foresaw
Aisha has returned
To her distant country
Let the poem
Let wind and ash and dove
Let the cloud and stars
Let the temple sacristan
Let the Euphrates mourn for her
I wept until the walls
Melted in Babylon
Ishtar on your mattress
I laid you down to die
What did I ever come by
Oh Phoenix
While you returned only
As virgin field a hearth
That dies again in the cold
A door not holding
Against the wind
Again you were
A worn book read by lovers
A book sold by the scribes
A tattered bone
A hope envenomed
When Aisha had returned
To her distant country
Let the Euphrates mourn for her
Let all the poems mourn
The shepherd waiting dies
Orpheus swallows the sun disk
Ishtar shedding tears
Looks for a lost ring
O boats of smoke
On the Euphrates
Whose water sings
A dirge for Tammuz
Aisha she-who-lives
With winter has returned
Returned to the orchard
A stripped willow
Leaf on leaf it weeps
Into the Euphrates
By the keeper of the dead
Its tears are woven
Into a chaplet
For dead love a chaplet
In the world of inbetween
Where Aisha sleeps
Her head cut off
On a cushion
And in the dark of her braids
The rats play and scuttle
Worms devour her eyes
My queen I saw a vision
When thunder clapped
The earth replied
With a cloud of fire
A clawless eagle
Took my breath away
Stripped me naked
Clad my hand
In shell and feathers
A bird's wing an oar
And the eagle guided me
To the keeper of the dead
There discarded crowns
Lay in heaps the doors
Would not close or open
The Lion of the Dust
Had dirt for daily bread
And the sacristan
Of this underworld
Honing his blade shouted
Who has brought to me
This wretched man?
Aisha has returned
To her distant country
A poem on a gravestone
Sayings old and wise
A rhyme of the rarest
A leafless willow
Weeping on the Euphrates
In a cloud of smoke
Day departed
And three or four
After this vision sick I die
My queen like you
Bedded on stone and flame
In blood I write on leaves
Of floating willow
What the fortune teller
Spoke to the wind
To the bird and the ashes
O thin sustenance
Each night to die
Sober and drunk I go
Through houses of the dead
In Babylon through ruins
Along the river shore
Alone
Speak to clouds
Wallow in dust
Shout in despair
From the grave I wait in
Tell the willow
What the fortune teller foresaw
Aisha has returned
To her distant country
Let the poem
Let wind and ash and dove
Let the cloud and stars
Let the temple sacristan
Let the Euphrates mourn for her
I wept until the walls
Melted in Babylon
Ishtar on your mattress
I laid you down to die
What did I ever come by
Oh Phoenix
While you returned only
As virgin field a hearth
That dies again in the cold
A door not holding
Against the wind
Again you were
A worn book read by lovers
A book sold by the scribes
A tattered bone
A hope envenomed
When Aisha had returned
To her distant country
Let the Euphrates mourn for her
Let all the poems mourn
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