Sunday, April 19, 2009

Ghazal 4 (stone radif, for Hitesh)

We sharpen, we wane, we pound and crush, we do not move to stand alone as stone

We are altars and baths, garlanded, smoothed, worn with blood, milk and love as stone.

 

In this house so solid and so cool I listen to songs of solitude but you

Lean against the wall, collapsing like a reggae king: rock-stone.

 

These are the built foundations of Jah-law and Jah-love.

Our kisses set lips as lime between the stones of this fortress.

 

Your body, smooth and tight, a seam of gold in a dark, hot mine-

A candle set inside a fist of salt, glowing through that solid stone.

 

You light my way: your feet cast golden angles like an open door. We lean in, become The acute kissed source of talk-talent, as echoes fly like prayers inside of our stone-love.

 

But because the firmament is not firm, and the heavens are not fixed, the meaning

Sun will glint between us on a given day when, breath-stirred, the stars align to stone.

 

We are eternal, yet we wear to dust under the soft touch of children. Our forms reborn, our memories burnished away. We yield to innocence, for time will also visit stone.

 

Love changes form, as waves carve caves from solid rock and sculpted forms run smooth

But light from light refracts, gold cleaved from gold is gold alone, and stone is always stone.