Be patient, don’t try to open your eyes

 

 

in a hurry. First, let me remove the bandages.

Let me wipe the eyelids with a soft cloth.

 

Take your time in adjusting your sight

because you have never experienced

so much light. Don’t be afraid

 

of the changes you’ll observe. It is our future

when we’ll belong to the sky; also it is our past

when we evolved from rivers.

 

Look, the houses have turned into temples.

Someone scattered white boulders

in our yards. Bird gods nest above every rooftop.

 

Streets have transformed into canals.

Now, to get anywhere you have to swim or fly.

Winged-postmen deliver all the mail.

 

A few airborne children return home

carrying their school bags in their beaks.

When you finally learn to open your eyes,

 

don’t expect to see me by your side.

As the monk says: to witness my face

you need to open an inner eye.

 

 

 

Tonight the moon is unusually bright,

 

 

brighter than ever I have seen before.

I remember it was very dim, yellowish

 

a few nights ago. Was the moon sick that night? I wonder

what makes a moon that ill and what heals it

 

to this brightness. When the moon is bitten,

half-eaten, who goes around the heavens

 

to gather its pieces to recompose this robust moon?

Or on the nights when it appears trapped

 

behind a dark wall, who unlocks its iron gate,

calls it back to the stage for another spectacular lunar show?      

 

 

 

Girls of this planet are like jazz musicians

 

 

While tapping spoons inside the emptied teacups,

they share stories from their extraterrestrial lives.

Nothing hush-hush with them.

 

They are also master improvisers.

Anything that happens on their corner

they embellish. They build upon it, change it   

 

in their thoughts. With voices like cymbals

they often challenge one another.

Singing scat, someone insults a new moon

 

who lost everything and began wailing the blues.

The new moon just wails even louder.

Competition is fierce.

 

When a could-be tenor sax saunters by, they alter

their rhythm. They pull in their best harmonies

before beginning their solos.