ASH-BOUND

Sand in my hourglass
Slowly seeps down
At eventide.
The sea is slowly
Turning its hourglass
Upside down.
I twist my hourglass
By the isthmus
And submit the sand
To the crematory of the soul
And blow its ashes
Into the Sea.

In this post, I wish to share a poem and to shed some light on its inception. I imagined a situation in which there was a swimming pool for children, and another one for older people. The narrator gets into the children's pool and describes its sweet noises and joys. He remembers suddenly that at fifty plus, he is no longer a child, though he could almost see the child in him. In the midst of this thought, a life guard asks him to leave the children's swimming pool and go to that for grown-ups. At that point, he feels the water is getting rather cold. He goes to the shower to warm up a bit, and then, goes out into the street.
***
COLD DREAM

As I jumped into the pool
The life guards didn’t see me.
The water was uterus-warm
Children’s voices filled the air
They hovered and flapped their little wings
Splashed water with their feet
And threw drops on each other’s faces.

At fifty plus
I didn’t have the feet of children
I couldn’t afford to tie swimming aids
Around my waist to keep me floating
But my heart hovered
I could nearly hear the child in me…

From her promontory
A life guard whispered to me:
“Please proceed to the pool for grown-ups,
This one is only for children”.

The water turned cold
I retreated into the shower
And soon out into the street.
January 19, 2010

THE WATERS OF MONTANA

In addition to everything else that it stands for, Wyoming is a land of horses, cows, deer and ranches. An appreciation of country is nothing unusual for many people here. Such topics have often come up in conversations I have had with friends and acquaintances in the past five months I have been here. Though I hail from North Africa, Arabia, or maybe because of that, I haven't found myself in territory that's completely unfamiliar. Among other things, I have listened with much interest and appreciation to Johnny Cash's song ‘Tennessee Stud’, and I know that in Arabic poetry, horsemanship, bravery, and traveling used to be very dear themes to many Arab poets. In these as well as in Johnny Cash's song, sound and meaning often merge, to create a perfect illustration of Alexander Pope's condition for poetic creativity: ‘The sound must seem an echo to the sense’. Recent conversations I have had with one Laramie artist on Robert Frost’s ‘Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening’ also come to mind.

'The poem below titled ‘The Waters of Montana’ is a way a personal reaction, not exactly the result of personal experience, but a composite of I know, see, experience imagine and integrate. I use the Arabic name of ‘Antar’ as a name for my imaginary horse, and I see me thus traveling from Kansas to Montana, with the element of snow being added to the mix of personal knowledge and current experience.

***

THE WATERS OF MONTANA

As the hands of time
Ticked by
Antar and I
Scuttled, walked
Rested and galloped
From Kolby, Kansas
To the edge of Custer National Forest.
Snow and darkness
Overtook us.
We unpacked by a vale
To pitch the tent and wait for dawn.
Antar saw a brook
Fancied a drink
And as he stooped,
The water was turning into ice
And declined to get drunk.

Laramie, WY, January 16, 2010