Colors

When I was a child, my mother used to dress me in red form head to toe. It is the color that I should love the most, for no other complements my features and complexion better than red. Yet I love blue –sky blue, sea blue, quiet blue…Blue and earth colors. The beauty of the man with brown skin and lapis (lazuli) eyes.
Yes, I had been told before that I should like whatever agrees with me: my appearance, my condition, my means, my accomplishments. But I can not prevent myself from following a dream, even the one that seems vain. I will not stop myself being in love with this man of my own creation.


Nim

I was making clay objects as I learned from the pottery master,
when I found your ochre under my adobe home.
Ochre- yellow, red, brown –the best among all
to color the bodies of unborn idols.
I shaped your body under the moon:
At the beginning it was the clay beneath my house.
The second night, the water brought by nightly Sylphs
from middle-earthen fountains.
The third night, the shape of my beloved’s body in ochre
was left for the sun’s warmth to bathe it in the fourth day.
In the evening of the fifth day you woke up
more than a shape of elongated curves,
my clay Idol for my solitude.

I sat you by the fireside:
you keep your place quietly, your eyesight turned inside
(Lapis eyes should not speak)
yet, if I gaze into them I notice a sparkle flutter, blue and gentle,
lost among the yellow, red, orange that glints on their surface
as I light the fire in the hearth…
They were raised to disregard our faith,
for them we are only object makers that pay dues.
They just rush in, to collect the hearth tax
careless for our treasures, bust you in a corner…
I call your name in despair:
Nim
And you do answer.
… as I light the fire
The heart burns (contained by) lapis and clay

My body
Charred under your kiss
dissipates itself in the dark heavy clay of your flesh
in-between flagrances of crazy ivy and barren grains,
scattered memories lost their way in the raveled earth
among hot beads trickling from your lips
warm summer rain.