Arabesque

Arabesque

Each afternoon

Passing his open window

With her basket of pastel shades

She laughs in harmony

With the cheers for the buzuq player

Joining smiles to worried faces

Like water to fire

Like happiness to the saddest stare

She’s the last page torn from a book

That followed a journey the length of time

But she doesn’t know she’s there

Engorged with reflections of his own image

Yet surrounded by his blindness

He turns from feasting in the mirror

Where cracks reveal man’s twisted tale

Through cirrus barricades moonbeams ricochet

To merge with daylight rescued from a faded past

He sees her in a vineyard hiding

Faraway

So very long ago

Through a mind the size of heartache

His ghosts blow wilder than the Khamsin

Might he ever touch her thoughts?

Might he fill that desert space

Between her eyes and his gravestone?

He ought to leave but which way to turn

Without her star to guide his way?

Sitting in his room

Peeking through a tragic cover

The silent music of solitude deafens

He’s never sung his song before

But when she hears it, she will know

Image: Part of a handmade magic carpet from the mystical East. My own photograph.