More Letters From Home

she sends me news of bushfires with the rain falling, not falling, and the pain of the old man in the cold, biting hamarttan and the suspended feasts she speaks of births and deaths on village lanes sometimes like falling leaves at Harvestide with hope buried in palms the diviner himself is lost gazing at the sick hills painted with withered leaves of corn lightly, she speaks in blues and lists what is all lost except me, the Sun, rising behind the hills and on returning will kill Death in the dark side of Home I read the lines like rotten melons piled beside my door or like baskets filled with dried raisins sitting in my studio hoping if I could tell Courage to hide me in some banana leaves till I touch the tip of an Envelope from which drips Stardust like rain here where my life seems sweet and strange I read her wild excitement of a place where stars fall on laps and nightingales sing long I thought long of the broken years that don’t change and my wailing lips touched the Cross I wish she knew how people live and never live at all in this part of the sea if she knew, maybe she will not tell me if she cries I folded the pages as I rise tipped the envelope from which drifts scraps of blues from home and there are dozens of such in my closet