haiti

the song plays the same old song

it brings me back to where i was

long time ago and yet again here

now as i play it in loop as if in it

i could hide, withdraw from the

sounds that in the streets want to

tell me of a melody i did not find

in what i was looking for and did

not know_ i went to foreign countries

searching among the unfamiliar names

the face that would have made all that

be friendly and smiling toward me.

but the sensuous song did not revive

in the surface of the checks i scanned

to look for that glimpse of tenderness

that had lighted up worlds of feelings_

it was dry and yet the song kept playing.

there was no more that gentle touch

that sprung from words not pronounced

from caresses held in the trembling hand.

the land was wasted and i with it

no place to pray for a whispering

fountain among the crickets cry

no gathering of blood at the altar

of promises held in buds under the

oblivion promising mantle.

i was

trapped in love thundering bars

vibrating in memories and hissing

on the puddled shore overstepped

by raging bulls that ambition feeds.

it washed me away till i reached

this silent country where the sky

plays the symphony of her stars

perpetually at the threshold of an

ever welcoming place to comfort

the traveller's heaved brow_here

the night gets you acquainted with

the colours of the light setting beyond

distant hills top and the rising hues

that the meadows did not give you

to articulate in timeless poetry lines

and awaits in the widening of shadows

pointing at the still turning compass

where past can be looked with concern

for that enough that in the future now

seems to be possible to ask for and

when the music still plays its melody

but you are not the same to hear it.