The good thing about a tortoise
is that he carries time on his
shoulder
and does not have to run
to cry.

He is like a river
flowing backward,
climbing the rocks on which her mother
had bitten
to un-feel the pain of origination
(so as to cast a glimpse on her nest
in the mountain).

He is a figure, a language, a sun
whose force is sustained by his own spirit -
unrelated: unlike a star,
a night, a candlelight.

He is his own version
of the light and the rite
and the fight sisyphean.

© LazharBouazzi