I do often times wonder
What this would now be,
If four years ago
You'd simply said "Hi" to me.

Would I have been this quick
To let you inside?
With such an unspoken welcome
Like a vacancy sign?

Or would I have refused
And simply walked away?
Without ever knowing
The man you are today?

Would I still look at you now,
The way I did yesterday?
Could I still make you blush,
With the things that I say?

Would we be different people,
Had timing not been the same?
Would I still smile like I do,
Every time I speak your name?

But it went like it did,
With 4 trips 'round the sun.
And here we are now,
On trip number one.

The haunting sky continued to produce the army of ghost clouds...
Lightning flashed anger...
And the curses of the gods broke the gates of heaven unannounced....!

The cries of hell were heard as a million souls fought to save my holy Land...
An oath seared into their skin to save the glory of their queen...

And I.... I stood watching with flaming eyes...
The threat to my would be orphaned land and sighed at the pieces of the remaining hours of my story...
Helpless I sat tearless... gazing into the dying horizon...

How I had lived as a lioness... How I had consolidated my existence into the minds of my beloved people... How I had taken Egypt to the zenith of wonders... How I had pierced into the souls of women the right to a dignity...

But now as I hold my head high to the grim awaiting in the courtyard... I swear to never let the filthy hands of invaders lay upon me. I call upon the Lord of serpents... To cradle me to the dreams of heaven by caressing it's bite into my skin..

This is a trail I leave to all my people... I am dying for you... O my beloved all...
May you live in peace!. ..
...

Ma..y Egy.... p... t live.... long..!
...!

The end

Knitting your muffler
As childhood...
Your black dress smells of me
I can't see the white jasmine flower without you...
"You are a jasmine flower yourself"
"My jasmine flower..."
Oh, my sweet little friend !
Play with me
In the glimpse of childhood memory
Wanting your shoes
Crying to the sun...
Cut my black hair
Turning to a balloon for you
Reaching to the city of you...

شال گردنت را می بافم
...مثل بچگی
پیراهن سیاهت بوی مرا می دهد
نمی توانم گُلِ یاسِ سفید را بی تو ببینم
"تو خودت گُلِ یاسی"
..."تو گُلِ یاسِ منی"
!دوستِ کوچک و شیرینِ من
به یاد بچگی
با من بازی کن
کفش های تو را می خواهم
تا آفتاب گریه کنم
موهای سیاهم را بِبُر
بادبادکی برای تو می شوم
...به شهر تو می رسم

Exiled to dusk,
Fractions of the sun
Begin to lift away,
In concealment
We shudder,
Casting our reels
Into a pond of uncertainty,
Clock hands bend
With advancing shadow,
And speak of time
Only in past tense.

I so want everything
I ever felt for you
Preserved for posterity,
Even should forever
Be far less than
We imagined.

I have forgotten how to write
without flowing flourishes,
without the rhyme that nourishes
each tight woven and cherished
poetic line.

I have lost the ability
to lose the structure
playing games with
the worlds of words I love.

When I was younger, I did not need
anything,
but the words to come flowing
from the fount I found,
spewing rose petals of purple and pink
and I did not feel compelled to think
what is the next word
in the next verse
that might link and light past lines.

I miss the curling lips
as I let the words just slip
and lay where they may
not caring how they would play
with similar sounds.

I feel like a poetry clown
who cannot break the cycle.

Now we find
The garden
Sweet with lavender,
The roses giving out
Their perfume,
Still air after the storm;
Scorched pavements
From sun's shining;
Hollyhock coloured stripes
Horizontal laddered stems;
Quietness in the afternoon hour
Before the coming home
Begins.

Love Mary ***