There is no blade brighter than the wind
No euphony as lucid
as entranced she sways—
No mercy weaved in her delirious wings
nor any dead lands
caked beneath the lambent scales
In serenity she loves, in serenity prays
In turbulence— plays

There is no blood prettier
—still, I sense his finger stir
Yearning for cords
as he climbs up
the old, darkened minaret

I hear them warriors are on their way
Lured to stillness by
an injured dragon they cannot slay
and the rain
beneath her guard
trembles, trembles—

I relish the cold devour of her excited breaths
swirling about like a Koel’s last song
up, up the boy does stumble
up, up the tallest minaret
Which has long ceased to kneel
for the Imam’s groggy knees

The masjid slumbers in arms of the tired town
and warriors appear—
Swords like withering moons,
shields, extinguished suns

And prayer mats are folded
by her vivid claws
As blossoms smile out the yellowed tiles
A lion yells, his deer screams
and one upon another,
the swordsmen fall

But I sense a stirring in him
He plucks the stubborn of his tendons
his fingers— a strange dance
And notes around him
tremble, tremble—
Too young to have learned the words
His lips tear open to birth a laugh
an Adhan of his own

There is no sacrifice like one of the wind
She paints a trench across her
wavering being
and trembles, trembles—

Through the shuddering lips pulled tight
she, into him, flows
like water, like a storm frenzied, she
into him, flows—
There is a stirring in him
As tunes give themselves to the vessels
and vessels, unwilling,
are pulled

I hear it all them
The dragon lured to stillness
by an injured boy she cannot slay
—hear this, too
His being, like baked bread, relaxed
And arrows, his vessels
release—
and tunes— tunes soar about
As the old, proud minaret
is bled to a viscous death

I watch the tunes, they
tremble, tremble—
I wonder where they will go
Perhaps down a Koel’s scratchy throat
or sway by the town’s unmarked grave

Then the folks rise up
and cleanse themselves,
Water up their faces, down the elbows
Coating their necks, and glistening in the hair
A prayer upon prayer
hatching on their tongues
—dried blooms
crusty beneath their feet
and rain, a coward— away

A boy is lost, they say
‘As if vanished,’ they say
but is soon let lost
among the rows of funerals
passing through the town’s dusty days
Mourners, and mourners
— dead upon the shoulders of dying
Death, restless, still
Warriors, warriors no more
and the boy

still sings over that forgotten tower
A dragon whirling within
mimicking our moon-struck Dervishes
—I swear the boy still sings
as he gushes, gushes melodies
with every tremble

an Adhan of his own—