When I heard he had entered the harbor,
and circled the wharf for days,
I expected the worst: shallow water,

It is Sunday, day of roughhousing. We are let out in the woods. The young boys wrestle and butt their heads together like sheep—a circle forms; claps and shouts fill the air. The women, brown and glossy, gather round the banjo player, or simply lie in the sun, legs and aprons folded.

A bench, a sofa, anyplace flat—
just let me down
somewhere quiet, please,
a strange lap, a patch of grass . . .

You prefer me invisible, no more than
a crisp salute far away from
your silks and firewood and woolens.

The sky is not a glass of anything;
it winks, it’s a parable,
the kind your mother told whenever

Homepage image courtesy of Egres73, Wikimedia Commons

My God, they were all so beautiful,
each parchment trumpeting its cursive praise
of Allah, whose residence m Istanbul

He who finds his business in the slow, 
persistent study of one green stone, 
even a plain one chosen, let us say,