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Poems from In the Path of Lightning: Selected Poems |
For Ilan Halimi | ||
kidnapped & tortured by French Muslims |
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A Song for Matthew Shepard |
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They might have been brothers, Wyoming wind lapped him with cold fire * * * Then the murderers went home, stained They hid the evidence after leaving him to die |
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A Bench in Tel Aviv | ||
1 or is it that young Israelis, especially the women, They must be beautiful, these dark-haired women, Their eyes don’t look away; instead, they turn towards me. 2 Behind her, a newly washed sheet flaps repeatedly The day is white with sun, dry and intemperate More beautiful girls float in the green fire of afternoon, 3 As they drift in a haze of tenderness and devotion, Father, I see now I am still mourning you! the fact of your existence spurred me on: and kept true intimacy in reserve, as if the history And when, in your eighth decade, you emerged, reached out to me, winter came too fast |
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Snow is the Poem Without Flags |
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for Orhan Pamuk
What is whiter than stars yet darker Only snow answers this call to mystery And what is its name, this creature is history and the heart its blue-white body, against her face? Only the white breath of the wind that prays in a thousand tongues and knows brushing the face of the snow that was born immersed as we are in summer in the heat of darkness everything on fire with a great |
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