The Far Mosque by Kazim Ali Page A

urns.
    Blue sky seen through the shattered window.

    Near the gate Sartre and de Bouvoir buried in a single grave.

    Scattered across their cenotaph an alphabet of stones,
    dried flowers, museum tickets.

    All prayers to our passing.

    My stone-tongued mouth.

    My work is my prayer.

Rouen

    The cathedral ruined, smoke-charred, empty.
    All the stained glass replaced by clear panes.

    Somewhere in the garden, unmarked
    among weeds and branches spiring skywards,

    the grove where Jeanne was burned.

    High above the floor in the spaces of the roof,
    on a catwalk, a worker cleans the windows.

    Somewhere in this cathedral dark stairs lead to that place.

    Through the dark-blue window it’s 1942:
    the war has come to Rouen.

    Ravens swoop down.
    All the windows shatter.

    Chunks of roof breaking off—falling—
    The floor littered with prismatic rain.

    The statue cracks to rubble on its pedestal.
    The chapels on the south wall shudder.

    One after the other collapse to dust.

    The nave creaks and pitches, rising and keeling
    atop the flood of light.

    Every saint’s image has disappeared save one:
    Ste-Catherine being stretched on her wheel—

    Her stone arms alone hold the long south wall.
    Who is the brave one? Who has been called?

    Harmony unbuckles as Jeanne turns her head to answer.
    The long walk goes through shadow and arch to the garden grove.

    The music is snapping, thread by thread.

    The statues are all missing from their pedestals

    The garden has grown apart from the gardener

    The famous woods torn up by tempest

    I am no longer that tempest

    I will no longer look up and see the absence of trees

    This is not a descent into catacombs, an inevitable combustion,
    a darkening into blindness

    Rather it is an approach on knees towards true sight

Departure

    My last evening spent wandering along the docks.
    By the foot-path, great iron rings.

    Here is where the boats moor when the water rises.

    The clouds gather themselves tightly together
    as dervishes do after a period of whirling.

    This should be a black and white film,
    where I am the only one left,

    sitting in front of the café,
    waiting for the rain.

    Briefly the sun pierces the clouds,
    casts eerie shadows.

    The water glows white.
    My little cup glows white.

    Letters in my bag for mailing.
    Starlings clamber on the depot roof.

    The sun dips into late afternoon.
    For ten years I could not see.

    Two boys are stacking rocks on top of one another.
    I close my eyes and listen to the falling.

    What about yesterday and the day before that?
    Carry what you can in your hands. Scatter the rest.

The Year of Summer

    You came down from the mountains to the shore with your father’s voice ringing in your ears, saying over and over again the call to prayer.

    The stairs leading down to the water are cracked and marked by awakening.

    Awakening in the south the morning sun shines lemon yellow for eleven months, the leaves of the trees telling a book of eleven dreams.

    In this book, the sky is sometimes lavender. In this book are colors you have never seen before.

    In this book is the taste of white peach.

    The blue-black sea turns milky under the noon-sun.

    In the twelfth dream your father whispers your name into each of your folded ears.

    In the year of summer you came south into a city of yellow and white, and what was told of this city was told in trees, and then in leaves, and then in light.

Journey

    The wind over open water: sharp howling.

    Guitar strings breaking.

    Solstice having passed days longer now.

    Beach aria.

    Synaptic dysfunction or syntactic exuberance.

    A small figure on the deck looking out across the blue-black.

    The years since then drunk and unforgiving.

    Wild roses crawl through the rough plank balcony.

    Drinking bitter coffee on the terrace.

    Weeks after that, alone in the vast public square.

    Watching the crowds board the night boat back to the mainland.

    Years later another journey you won’t