A ghazal! I haven’t written a ghazal since June of 2005. So that makes this—what?—my 127th. Feels nice to get one out again. I remember I got real tired of them by the end of my ghazal project a few years ago, but I never really intended to abandon them altogether.
With this one I veer away from using my penname in the signature couplet (last couplet) to using a reference to one of my penname’s meanings. In this poem it’s “open skies”, since “vast openness to the heavens” is one of the Arabic meanings for ‘Zahhar’.
spires
let’s twine our roots beneath the world together
until we rise against the wind together
let’s turn and reach to gather shades of light
with countless long thin leaves that wave together
let’s make a bed beneath our outstretched limbs
shaded by the dreams we weave together
let’s draw clear waters from the hidden earth
and breathe them out as vapors washed together
let’s share the sounds of creeks and faint cicadas
their rhythmic songs like magic wound together
let’s shelter soft brown trails among the fern
where lovers holding hands may walk together
let’s filter daylight from the open skies
through daydreams spun like amber webs together
Publication History:
Art Arena (web-based) — March 2007
