WHO has been so shy with the truth—
that has made the apotheosis of you an ordeal
from which you have not quite arrived? Listen:

it is the voice of those who stand near, the people you love,
who knew and loved you best. You are their sun, and you
are still this sun, still their sun, the sun of a homeland
nearer than their other homes, the center of a garden
unburdened of yews or pines, the middle way in this world.

———where was this homeland to be found,
this refuge or dance: lightness of your steps,
salt of your hair, the voice that made their hearts
inhale—over there in a Pusan train station,
in a mindhood from Hanoi, perhaps in an O’Brien family.

So let us wander together in the evenings, let the teeming
skies be clean, the mastic perfume adorning the cactuses and
trees, as these have spread its fiery fragrance, to grace the
fires of the cabanas with myriads of lighted cinders. let the
light of the evening sunset descend from behind the edge of
the Seine and bathe us with the sparkling waters of the
Ajoagua River in the region of Guatemala, where the Kaqchikel
people have danced to the music of the Fuego’s clashing pyramids. —
— the strata, the rocks, in the Pisco region of Peru.

There, yes there.
We find Love.

:: 02.05.2022 ::