MISCARRIAGE

I decided to make for the spring

On top of the Rockies.

I left at dawn.

The Mountain was a blueprint

On a backdrop of umber

Perforated from afar

By the hues of the sun.

At thirty odd miles of walk

I looked up,

There was the peak

At an acute angle of head raising

Chirping, calling, beckoning:

“Come over, O, my little Candid,

I got manna for you,

Unseen by human eye,

And distilled extractions

Brewing for generations.

I got too a crystal cap,

An observatory of the heretofore

And a stream to the hereafter.”

But the net was hurled,

Fog outraced me from aback and around;

I couldn’t see the way forward,

And prosaic voices drew me back.

Ali H. Raddaoui

Eid Ul-Fitri in Sfax, Tunisia

Part of me cozies up into my bedding, beats at primal speed,

Exists, subsists, ruminates, punctuates without a mark

As early morning Eid Ul-Fitri rituals seep into the breeze

Ushering one Season into the next.

Between the thick of darkness and the hour of dawn

Is a moment that escapes the onlooker.

Stepping outside of me

People, total strangers, meet

Exchange greetings and do small talk,

Welcome this stranger into the traditions of town

Explain how local seafarers brought Shermula and Salty Fish dishes

Into the day-to-day parlance of Sfax cuisine.

The other part of me is now high on intercity coach station caffeine

Savors the moment, cogitates it, locates self within it,

Tables its equations and tackles its riddles

Captures it as structure before another episode settles in.

I relish both moments and think it neat

To seize the strands of both ends by the hand

To scaffold my existence

As one side knuckles up into the other.

I feel rooted, having found my bearings on this pedestal,

And being on the cusp of something new.

Ali H. Raddaoui-June 15, 2018