Aubade

          (On ½ a line of Suhrawardi)

                    Why did papyrus have to go away
                    Why not come in sheets to write on
                    or else forget it as it’s happening
                    and forever wonder why
                    It takes a lot of time to turn aside
                    from all I thought I saw along the way
                    Bright planet, form a sign for me
                    because don’t you know the
                    stars that wander are the noble ones
                    Hasty are we, in harness pressing on
                    The nearest place to where we are
                    is miles away
                    Some thing to travel on
                    as high as it is wide
                    the next to go will be the ultimate
                    Read it to me softly, now
                    from papers on the floor
                    printed lightly with two feet to fly on

          By David Larsen (2022)

It's Out and It's On

    

      Thank you Patrick Durgin, editor and publisher of Kenning Editions
      Thank you Faride Mereb, who designed the cover
      Thanks to all subscribers to the press
      Thanks to Sinan and Rachel

      ISBN 979-8-9856628-2-5
      iv + 75 pages, 21 cm. $16
      Poetry is a furnace

Out of My Hut

     Get out of my hut, you mice who hug the shadows!
     You mice will find no fodder in Leonidas's crock.
     The old man's fine with two barley loaves, if there's salt.
     My forefathers lived this way, and I heed their example.
     So why scrabble in my corners, treat-seeking
     where prandial tidbits are never spilled?
     Go on to houses that aren't so frugal
     where sustenance is yours to scuttle away with

By Leonidas (Greek Anthology 6.302)

Auspicious Sana‘a

     I say to my near one through flowing tears
         when the will to go abroad is on me:
     Let me make my journey, let me pass unmourned.
         The stars that wander are the noble ones.
     Travel leads to betterment of outcome.
         Sitting still in comfort is the way of ruin.
     In darkness I see illumination,
         as if day switched place with night,
     when lightning from [auspicious] Sana‘a reminds me
         my destination isn't far away.
     Why should I rejoice at spending nights out in the desert
         when high above Ursa Minor is my home?
     And how will I be food for worms, with
         four elements on every side?
     How long will I live next to Draco
         with constellated serpents for my friends?
     My union with that light will be annihilation,
         and my passing out of knowing left from right,
     and the walls will echo with a pounding
         by rejectors of my secrets with their heads.

By Suhrawardi (meter: wāfir)