(After a photograph by Victor Dlamini)
There is that sea, deep sometimes
as the heart at dusk,
the shine on its face soon to fade.
There is that caravel drifting in
and all it brings: a load of good
and the bad unreckoned by the quartermaster.
The homing birds that come or go.
The sun that’s set,
now only a shade smudged by fog.
From empty rooms, frosting windows,
no one saw
its dying spectacle.
There is something of this sea,
its cold and darkening deep
in the human heart, in me,
that lies unfathomed,
beyond all sounding,
that doesn’t know its own dark treachery.
Rustum Kozain‘s poetry has been published in local and international journals, some in translation in French, Spanish, and Italian.
