Three Poems

Adam Sass

Great Wall

On this side, ruled lines, 
Rivers bridged, terraced fields, 
Lintels and windows,
Roads leading to other roads 
And those to highways
That led to the capital.

On the other, shifting dunes,
Tracks of horses, 
Wild game slain by wilder men: 
Ibex, pheasant, hare.
Mounted riders glimpsed on distant ridges,
Watching, wheeling, gone.

A land whose maps dwelt only in memory
But for those rare nights when, 
Sketched by firelight in sand or cinders,
They took earthly form, 
Revealed their contours to new eyes,                     
And scattered with morning’s wind.            

Now one who stood atop the wall wondered
Had it all been this way before its building –
The two landscapes growing 
Ever more strange to each other, 
Like brothers raised in separate houses,
Or had the coming of the wall made it so?

And who alive could even 
Recall the answer,
Resurrect it from its 
Tomb of time?
Surely none he knew, 
Or would ever know.

Such questions were not worth the asking,
He concluded, stretching himself for slumber 
In the high guardhouse that sat astride the wall,
The two lands recumbent on either side.
But still he found the question circled him warily,
A gaunt stray skulking at camp’s edge.

When he finally slept, he dreamt of wild horses.

Temple Thief	

Nameless one
Who pushed back the temple doors
With hands that spurned ablution: 
In your pricing eye all things 
Yield meaning to measure –
A certain weight of gold, 
A certain length of silk.

Last week’s takings are gone.
At the time they seemed the world,
And you almost thought to keep them.
But tarnish soon crept in from their edges,
And it’s best that they’ve sold.

At the market they are curious. 
Where did you come by these? 
They ask, squint-eyed against the dust
Billowing in from the desert.

Oh, this is an old gift I never found use for,
And this I am selling for a friend,
And this for a neighbor.
You know how it is,
You say, laughing, laughing:
A coin’s hollow ring
In a brass heart.

Nameless one, 
In the evenings 
When you look at your hands,
Thinking of your trade,
Fear lights its cold candles 
In the corners of your room,
 
And from their shadow-play 
You conjure a stranger 
Who points across a crowd 
And shouts a name that 
Could only be yours.

Cat

All got up in furred satyr pants,
And whipping tail lashed on for the ride,
You’ll crouch, 
Creep for cover,  
Yowl an hour, 
Fill your long days with dallies in 
Couched and cushioned 
Shadow-caverns, 
Then dance out for a bit of 
The old spring and swat,
The old lunge and plunge, 
The old lunarchic game,
The old killer’s whirl,
Slashing at porchlit moths 
Cicadas and katydids,
As thought cedes to deed –
For didn’ts aren’t in it, 
When doing’s afoot
With all its claws out.

Owl-eyed, night-yearning 
Haint, I’ve seen your kind 
In glassed zoo cases, 
The lights dimmed, 
The hall hushed, until some sticky child
Trilled, “I don’t see it!”
And mommy pointing and soto voce
Saying, “There it is, in the back.
See? It’s staring at you.”
And the child staring back,
Transfixed, unvoiced,
Thrall to those two cold fires.
Then they vanished, 
And the case was empty again.