Skip to content

The book The House of the World has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and is now available on Amazon.

Explaining Myself

You see,
I am a sentimental person.
A romantic.
My impulses are childish.
I get lost easily.
I do not understand cruelty,
though my anger can defy gravity.
But it gets lost in the heavens
and never returns.

I do not think like a scientist
or a warrior.
Politics is a strange flavor
which I never use.
Religion belongs to the buildings
that house it,
and sometimes passing by,
I’ll listen to the sounds
coming from the walls,

I am taken by invisibilities.
Things I see which are never there,
although we exchange pleasantries
and touch fingers.
It is hard to be the kind of person I am.
I do not sit still.
I fall in love with everything,
and seem at sea,
like I’m always leaving harbors.
Watching towns recede.
Seeing islands light up with stars.
Collecting drops of water
before they burn away.

And like dogs do,
leave traces of myself behind.
Like a touch left on a tree,
a kiss blown to the wind,
a word of joy, like Yes!
To something singing or flying,
or simply being beautiful.
And at night,
when I can no longer play,
I say prayers in the darkness,
to the darkness,
and smile
when something says inaudibly,
we had fun, didn’t we?
And I go to sleep.

Published inIndex of all Poems