GEOGRAPHY LESSON

What creates poetry, you ask
and I, like the coal man in the Basque movie,
run to brace the tumbling stack of coal.
We’re talking about a lifesaving act, I say,
the courage to touch the heat collapsing.
“Beyond all this,” as Larkin wrote,
“the wish to be alone.”
This grinding land rests on my neck.
The knife, the dagger, and the spear
have been contaminated since the day people thought to produce them.
We walk about like those who have lost their minds,
drumming our exposed chests in crazy ceremonies.
The poems, I promise you, haven’t experimented on animals.
Everything is done carefully and strictly, created humanely,
after all, we’re talking about human beings.
The head of a Palestinian woman bandaged in white cotton lies on a platter
like the head of the Baptist presented to Salome.
In the land of vengeance dripping mother’s milk and blood
poems are moveable property –
stones, ridges, houses, fences.

GEOGRAPHY LESSON