POETRY

I want

Neither the old titles

Nor the new ones.

Call me

By the same familiar name

I am a man

A man of yesterday and today

A man of today and tomorrow.

In my eyes, the stars fade away

And in my hands, the setting sun.

In my smile, a child is born

And from my heart, blood bubbles up.

I am my own god, and yet

I see myself as a fox

With a tail turbaned on my head.

I am the goddess of creation, and yet

I see myself as a cog

In the frowning wheel of production.

I get up, and from the quiet porch

Look at the dead trees of winter

I wrap myself in the sweater

That Marjan knitted in prison,

To give history and nature

Their first lesson in freedom.  
 

December 22, 1985

This poem was first published in my collection of poems, Muddy Shoes (Beyond Baroque Books 1999).