Immigrants

When a young boy’s hand grows Hanuman
In his battle armor
Magnificent, victorious, fierce, bent on destruction
And asurs flee the pale space of the cheap paper
I hear the thunder of leathery wings
Of the flying monkeys
Over the darkening cityscape,
Its many fractured reflections drowning like shiny spears of light
In the black well of the Elliot bay
Little Dorothy
Lost in a strange land

MOTHER COURAGE

With March blowing wild breath onto the sprawling cold city
The armies moved along the coast north
Motorized infantry
Towards the Canadian border;
That day the sakuras bled
Gathering pools of red petals
streaming like rivulets of blood
In the gray cement canyons
Today I am left to pick up the spoils by the road
Round shields
A lonely shoe ( I always wonder where its mate could be)
A torn garment
And a pale piece of paper,
a letter to nowhere
rolling in the dust

Lake Washington

Sweet tender alders
are drinking in sunlight
fanning out thin brunches into the skies
from the dark rancid mud and the graying dead grass.
the fireworks of the blossoming branches:
sakura, appletree, dogwood
crisscrossing the shady evergreen
in luminescent bold strokes
and the strange square stars
shimmer mysteriously as they cascade down still half-open.
The lake breathes evenly:
its bosom, shielded by steel and sapphire
rises and falls,
moist breath carnivorous, insatiable
(fish, weeds, herons and seagulls
are caught in the endless Brownian motion)
it clings to the shore
claws at its cold wet stones,
at the roots of the willow
yellowing in the anticipation of leaves -
and stops,
mesmerized by a tiny sparkle:
a daisy
in the grass.

Holy Friday

The spring - her heavy breath ice-cold breeze-
Tears leaden shroud of the darkly roiling brume
And ray of sunlight at the edge of the horizon
Makes asphalt burst in blazing fiery streams
And every blade of grass
And every tender petal
Of pink magnolia
in frost
Is trembling in anticipation
Of retributions
And earthquakes.


The broken body of the Lord
Is being washed with heavy tears
The ones who have not witnessed yet
His resurrection, full of fears
and hope,
Are waiting by the tomb

Early Spring in Seattle

This Spring is out to get me
to wrap me up
to trap me
with dangerously tender limbs around my neck
to crash me
to mute, to tame, to smash me.

The treachery of fragrant breeze
the breath of shameless blooming trees
and mossy trunks of verdant green
the flash of wing and happy din
the buzz, the whisper in those budding branches
the crawling velvet of new grassy patches
delirious daffodils, primroses, hyacinths
break through the rotting skin
of autumn's leaves
abandoned children drying, dying
Disturbing sweetness lingering above
the city stench of gasoline
wet paint, urine and tattered blankets
(the nameless owner is gone)
is entering my blood like slow poison
poised for a kill
reluctant to begin

Familiar colors, sounds, smells,
the springy blades of grass,
the heavy blossoms
are out to lull me in convenient dream
to numb the pain
to mar the hints
of previous Covenants
of life forgotten,
grounds
lost.

On theater and sickness

25, 26 and 27 of January were days of exhilaration and stress: my students performed The Taming of the Shrew 4 times...And I lived to tell the tale! Not quite, though - the next day I was down with pneumonia - and I am still recovering. Well, Molier and a few other favorite thespians died on stage, so it is not really anything unusual!

Enheduana

Late evening lashed the dusty trail
With heavy shadows
Drooping planes wept over the fate of the condemned

Princess
Your guilt's being born the twelfth daughter
Of the High King on the seat of Akkad
Daughters are never of much consequence to their fathers
Does he really need your tenderness
How much did you long
And how much did you fear
To step into that hall and hide your face
In his shimmering robes

Now pray to the Goddess Inanna of Ur
Sing her praises
The ever-changing Mistress of the midnight
The inconstant traveller, holding chains of love
And memory
Confide your solitude into the cool tablets of clay

A young man grieving over his loss
Carves with chisel and mallet
The name of the king on each stone of the Road of Marduk
But the burning tips of his fingers
Imprint «Enheduana»

The ancient planes stood along the trail,
Condemned
The guilty verdict nailed according to the law;
On bright orange paper in large letters
«King of the Jews»
And «Partisanen»
The five-fingered leaves on the road
Danced their last ballet