1. A Garden in Shiraz


A paradise beneath which rivers flow . . .
In the suburbs
where the city of Shiraz becomes a paradise of orchards
the deep sun of Shiraz burned my eyes.
The reddish boy who led me around deepest “Persia”, 
said: Soon we’ll be in shadow and water . . .
We will enter, like two birds, the garden!
And we entered it!
And it was a paradise beneath which rivers flowed,
a paradise for opium and for letting go.
Hafiz at the edge of a stream, stretched out, surrendered to bird song,
listening:
These poems of his were sung;
The air is plagued by whiffs of opium 
And the sun disappeared among the shadows . . .



2. Botanical Garden, Algiers


I was seeking refuge in Hussein Dey, at university housing.
That was in 1964.
Has it been fifty years?
Fifty years of horror, woe, and armored vehicles?
Hussein Dey approached welcoming like a mother
preceded by the garden
that knew me well
and offered me its terraces to lie down on when walking wore me.
I was a fugitive inquiring about unnamable trees
I was homeless
and Algeria fed me in hunger
and sheltered me from fear
That garden was my homeland
on days when the world narrowed around me!



3. Garden C . . .


In Garden C,
gold floss.
In Garden C,
a spring where silver is about to flow,
In Garden C,
the Grace of a sip from Salsabil,
In Garden C,
two marble guards,
a delta, 
and a long night!
In Garden C,
the universe rests in the seat of bliss . . .



4. Ruben’s Garden


The sky will be sky-blue, then white.
Outside the church roof
or its wall,
nothing impossible or closed for me to render in color.
But I was fed up with the scene:
The well-off women
and their breasts . . .
The wide dresses, and servants,
the strollers,
the priests.
Now, I can leave this so-called "garden."
Now I can make my plans:
The garden will be white:
A dance floor
and a song for the villages—
the villagers dancing like gods.



5. Al Sobky Park


In the Damascus that pulls away from me
and hides,
this garden
stays put, squat among its haggard, ancient trees.
Surrounded by speeding wheels,
and the rich who dream secret blueprints hidden in bank vaults, 
sketches of new towers to replace the garden.
But the garden stands firm, oblivious.
Its totem is bent, 
its totem barely sleeps past dawn.
The garden’s totem
is the Old Veterans Club
where fragrant cups of regret are gulped.

1. Salsabil: A spring or fountain in paradise mentioned in the Quran. ↩︎