As He Walks Away

The enemy who drinks tea in our hovel

has a horse in smoke, a daughter with

thick eyebrow, brown eyes and long hair

braided over her shoulders

like a night of songs.

***

He's never without her picture

when he comes to drink our tea

but he forgets to tell us about her nightly chores

about a horse of ancient melodies

abandoned on a hilltop.

***

Relaxing in our shack, the enemy

slings his rifle over my grandfather's chair

eats our bread like any guest,

dozes off for a while on the wicker couch.

Then, as he stoops to pat our cat on the way out,

says:"Don't blame the victim."

"And who might that be?" we ask.

"Blood that won't dry in the night."

***

His coat-buttons flash as he walks away.

***

Good evening to you! Say hello to our well!

Say hello to our fig trees! Step gingerly

on our shadows in the barley fields.

Greet our pines on high. But please

don't leave the gate open at night.

And don't forget the horse's terror of airplanes.

And greet us there, if you have time.

***

That's what we want to say at the doorstep.

He hears it well enough,

but muffles it with a cough,

and waves it aside.

***

As long as the earth turns around itself inside us

the war will not end.

Let's be good then.

He asked us to be good while we're here.

He recites Yeats's poem about an Irish Airman:

"Those that I fight I don't hate,

Those that I guard I don't love."

Then he leaves our wooden ramshackle hut

and walks eighty meters to our old stone house on the edge of the plain.

***

Greet our house for us, stranger.

The coffee cups are the same.

Can you smell our fingers still on them?

Can you tell your daughter

with the braid and thick eyebrows

she has an absent friend

who wishes to visit her, to enter her mirror

and see his secret.

***

How was she able to trace his age in this place?

***

Say hello to her, if you

have time.

***

What we want to tell him

he hears well enough, but muffles with a cough

and waves aside.

***

His coat buttons flash

as he walks away.