Sunday, March 11, 2018

THE MULBERRY TREE



Kay Hassan


-From the Old House.

(De quel Age es-tu, Lord.)*
 Oh, Grandfather’s mulberry,
How old  are you?
O'  heavenly  ghost how ld you are?
Your giant trunk’s hollowing ,                                                                                                                        Oh,  miracles  of the  ancient valley,
Yet,  shooting sprigs ,and sprouting,
To shade the medieval  hand-mills,
And the fence of the holy stone
 On which Your lord’s body
Was bathed for the last time
 De quel Age es-tu,

I know how many years
You bore our burden, howls, and  screams,
 and  how long, listened to  Mother’s Lullaby;
 for Her Sick new-born in Hammocks

You endured  our unkindness
Our piercing squeaks-when
Plucked your unripe fruits
And did many bad things with you ;
Un-rhymed, and dis-harmonized
the sparrows’ chirps.

Then we hung saw like ropes of swing.
 Around your neck.
And  for so many years
Wound around your wrist
Rough halters for
Calves’ tanned skins
. (our butter maker.)
And slaughtered  under your shade
For Abraham’s son
A thousand heads of  life-stock
And ripped their fleshes
With the heaviest choppers,
And most often barbecued
Their kidneys and testicles,
With ceremonial moods,
 Screaming.
 ‘De quel Age es-tu, lord’
But,
Despite all our crimes
You said. ‘Whatsoever, dears.’
Again and again,
Until The thunder
Hit thy trunk
And split it
Into equal halves,
Sprawled on the ground
Like an integrated Adam,
Thighs open to the sky, 
Having the  Ditch of  Earth
Between thy mountainous loins,
 Henceforth;we understood,
 How the motherland’s  vagina exposed
 To swords and lances,
And daggers of tongues,
where  my brother shed tears,
On your corpse,
 ‘De quel Age es-tu, Lord.’

You know it is your time
The leaves are wilting, and
They won’t match your Cambium
You know it is your time, and-
 the worst of times are coming-for us,
For all of us.
 And I see Thy pain so great,
 I feel ashamed to display  my  wounds.
Dear father. Dear Lord: 
‘De quel Age es-tu, Lord.’

“Though we were not good species in the ecosystem,
 Dear  Lord of the house
We had loved thou as much as Man can love God.”
-----------------
"De quel Age es-tu," From Arthur Rimbaud.

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