[lit-ideas] Another Thursday Poem

                                                 Souvenirs 

 

The mountains merged their substance

Into clouds and disappeared.  I had my hands

Out waiting, but when the rain came

The water ran through my fingers.

My hands held nothing but the shine.

I remember most the smell

Of being there in the damp cold air.

 

I rushed down like rain

Making my home in Cairo,

Leaving no evidence that I'd been there -

Whatever moisture had dissipated

In the Maghreb along with

Averroes on Cairen streets

Where Naguib Mahfouz bought a cantaloupe

 

And hurried home.  I peered through his gate

And was fended off by his guards.

One must have them today in Cairo

If one is to write honestly

Whatever one thinks.  Back here

I need no guards.  I've read so much

I have nothing left to think.

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