In the east, the day breaks; do not
say we have started too early;
For we shall cross many hills yet
Before we grow old; here
the land is surpassing in beauty.

Mao Tse Tung 1934
I look out the bars upon the Castle
the crust caked row of age
in a corner my friendly spider
crouches for the unwary gnats
of my days.

So much there is we must atone.
There are spires of faith
in the invisible claws of spiders
in the flight and curve of gulls.
These know, I swear,
the contours of the rolling Saharas
and the destitute oceans of our history.
We sit, debating the charity of our captors.

At night lights come on
the shoreline bends into a broad bay
near the Castle
the sea is gray
Yesterday it rained on the eve
of my forty-first year
and left all my defeats intact

Let me lead you into the country
It is only as half clansman
of the ritual goat
that I bring my song to the place of sacrifice
here in the pain fields
asphalt and smoke of a large hearth
I lead
my rope is short.
I shall soon arrive under the tree.

I will stage a hundred fights in honor of our Gods
and our beloved leader
Here, I could care less for the toiling masses
I retreated here before Lent
to my own stretch of sea front
(I cannot see the damned sea
because of old caked walls
built by Dutchmen)
But the shore falls into a deep gulf
there are no cliffs.

They found a week-old baby
buried in a shallow grave
on the front lawn of the fort.
I want my grave to be deeper.

They are sawing through our firewood
Today is cassava day
The flutist is silent
Perhaps his troops have arrived in Georgia

Not to arrive upsets me
And for the path that I have trod
I have no regrets