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He worked years on the tablet, deciphering the pictographs. He knew it was a kind of language, those images. An eye. A bird, maybe a crow. A basket of wheat. A ladder. Did the order of the images matter? He cross-referenced similar texts. He studied the history of the region and satisfied many hours in the tablet's service. In a cousin language, a ladder was the word for happiness, to rise up, to be lifted above the ordinary. After years of work, he sorted it out. It was poetry, bad poetry, adolescent: "Today, I am happy, happy all this day, today."

Agathas Four and forty lovers had Agathas in the old days, All of whom she refused; And now she turns to me seeking love, And her hair also is turning. Young Lady I have fed your lar with poppies, I have adored you for three full years; And now you grumble because your dress does not fit And because I happen to say so. Lesbia Illa Memnon, Memnon, that lady Who used to walk about amongst us With such gracious uncertainty, Is now wedded To a British householder. Lugete, Veneres! Lugete, Cupidinesque! Passing Flawless as Aphrodite, Thoroughly beautiful, Brainless, The faint odor of your patchouli, Faint, almost, as the lines of cruelty about your chin, Assails me, and concerns me almost as little.

A physician of eminence, some years ago, Was called in , to attend on a lady of fashion, Who had long been admired — and the toast of each beau, Tho’ now , her sunk features excited compassion. The doctor no sooner the lady had eyed, Than he begged, ‘She for once would his freedom forgive If he stepped from the rules of good breeding aside, To mention the terms on which she might live.’ ‘By all means,’ cried the lady, ‘for surely no word A physician may utter, should e’er give offence; Punctilio, in illness, is always absurd, And shows either doctor, or patient wants sense.’ ‘Why then, my dear lady, I cannot resist Pronouncing this truth, like a plain honest man; That if, in the use of white paint you persist No medicine will save you, do all that I can.’ ‘You astonish me, Doctor! but, such is my case, That I may as well die , as leave painting alone; For, should I appear with my natural face Amongst my acquaintance — I should not be known.’

When I see the houses in this city, the electric gates and uniformed men employed to guard the riches of the rich, the gilded columns and gardens, the boats on water, I wonder, how to describe my home to you: the short, mud walls, the whispering roof, the veranda on which my whole family used to spread sheets and sleep. The year I came to find work in the city, my wife painted our house white so it would be brighter than the neighbours'. I beat her for her foolishness. The children are hungry, I said, the cow is old, the money collector is after my blood, and you steal like a magpie— half a month's wage—to decorate your nest like a shiny jewel? The monsoon finally arrived the year I left, dripped through the thatch, peeled paint off the walls. The wells grew full and overflowed. The farmers rejoiced in the fields. My son sat with his mouth open catching drops of water like a frog. My wife clung to the walls and wept. When I fall asleep on the pavements in this city, I try to imagine my wife's skin against mine, the kohl in her eyes, the white walls, the whole village sky bearing down upon us with all the weight of the stars. I think of returning to that life, but mostly I try to remember how the world was once. I want to open my mouth like my son, and swallow things whole— feel water filling all the voids, until I am shaped back into existence.

“peacekeeping troops” “tanks beneath the windows” The inside of someone else’s dwelling visible — a table and some chairs. You start to count one, two, three, four . . . until the explosion is near your neighborhood. You can guess the position of mortar by this counting and try to find a safe place. If the windows are gone, weak plastic is taped up but the strong wind comes and we stay awake. In this South Cholla Province where all vehicles had been confiscated, we resorted to walking, the method of travel of the Yi Dynasty. We reverted back 300 years. Kwangju, 1980 It’s the same to be in the house, at the shelter or anywhere. There is no safe place. When we have no electricity, we are sitting in the dark and we know what life looked like before Christ. Sarajevo, 1992

A woman wails,boo hoo, mourning her man Shut up, shame on you, don't cry to the hills! O little sister, I should have warned you Don't eat the meat, if it makes you cough blood!

Many nights while walking home after work, from downtown to an apartment below a market, I’d think of Alfred Espinas: “We do not get together to die, but to live and to improve life.” Sudden changes of weather and contagious diseases nearly broke the spirits of many friends that winter, but charmingly we made habits of dancing and sharing meals in our cramped rooms. Our landlords were thieves and our bosses were pessimists, yet we dreamed of a new phase of civilization, one of kindness and goodwill. “We need communes,” Oscar exclaimed. Silvia argued, “But islands are corpses, let’s think instead of syndicates.” Mondays we’d return to dirty dishes, copy machines, and dull knives, and we spent the next three centuries doing what we were paid to do.

“The lamps are burning in the synagogue, in the houses of study, in dark alleys. . . .” This should be the place. This is the way the guide book describes it. Excuse me, sir can you tell me where Eli lives, Eli the katzev— slaughterer of cattle and poultry? One of my ancestors. Reb Haskel? Reb Shimin? My grandfathers. This is the discipline that withstood the siege of every Jew; these are the prayer shawls that have proved stronger than armor. Let us begin humbly. Not by asking: Who is This you pray to? Name Him; define Him. For the answer is: We do not name Him. Once out of a savage fear, perhaps; now out of knowledge—of our ignorance. Begin then humbly. Not by asking: Shall I live forever? Hear again the dear dead greeting me gladly as they used to when we were all among the living? For the answer is: If you think we differ from all His other creatures, say only if you like with the Pharisees, our teachers, those who do not believe in an eternal life will not have it. In the morning I arise and match again my plans against my cash. I wonder now if the long morning prayers were an utter waste of an hour weighing, as they do, hopes and anguish, and sending the believer out into the street with the sweet taste of the prayers on his lips. Today this creditor is at your office; tomorrow this one in your home; until the final creditor of all places his bony hands upon your breast. Faster! Dig your heels into the dust! How good to stop and look out upon eternity a while. And daily—at Shahris, Minha, Maariv, in the morning, afternoon, and evening— be at ease in Zion.

For Christopher Merrill Swear by the olive in the God-kissed land— There is no sugar in the promised land. Why must the bars turn neon now when, Love, I’m already drunk in your capitalist land? If home is found on both sides of the globe, home is of course here—and always a missed land. The hour’s come to redeem the pledge (not wholly?) in Fate’s "Long years ago we made a tryst" land. Clearly, these men were here only to destroy, a mosque now the dust of a prejudiced land. Will the Doomsayers die, bitten with envy, when springtime returns to our dismissed land? The prisons fill with the cries of children. Then how do you subsist, how do you persist, Land? “Is my love nothing for I’ve borne no children?” I’m with you, Sappho, in that anarchist land. A hurricane is born when the wings flutter ... Where will the butterfly, on my wrist, land? You made me wait for one who wasn’t even there though summer had finished in that tourist land. Do the blind hold temples close to their eyes when we steal their gods for our atheist land? Abandoned bride, Night throws down her jewels so Rome—on our descent—is an amethyst land. At the moment the heart turns terrorist, are Shahid’s arms broken, O Promised Land?

Surviving in its fragile skin, a white egret rises from the gulf of its strength. I want the lightest needle of a pine to fall on my hand, a pine with ravaged limbs. I'd stare through salt-blind eyes at a remote fragile sea.   I'd roar. I'd make the skeleton of grief. I'd roar like you, unreconciled sea.