In a languorous afternoon at the beginning Of twenty first century, you hear a voice Chanting verses of a song, in Spanish.

Lacking the knowledge, that which makes Men gods, you slowly repeat one (or three?) word To yourself over and over – an abstract mantra.

‘El del cristal’, you later find out means ‘In the mirror’. Language is the devil that has taken you in, the devilish mirror.

‘Infants don’t recognize themselves in mirrors’, you had read somewhere. What is that strips you of your self?

Language, of course, with its magical Labyrinth, that swan gliding with an image Of the sky, in the mirror held up by you.

Another morning in March, I am woken up by the phone ringing. A voice I recognize as my mother’s As I slowly drop my grogginess like a blanket.

I imagine her calling from that dimly lit Distant room, as she tells me to do something today, After wishing me happy birthday, many Returns (or is it reruns?) of the day etc.

I nod as I see how one corner of the window That faces southeast is already bronze. The pink quince, I had placed in the water Last evening, have already paled.

I tell myself not to thread metaphors Of dread, death and dying into things. Let the ideas about living be separate From life, as being alone is from silence.

There I shall shuttle between work and the job That enables me to do this work I am meant to do in long hours of the years left, This slow fashioning of required lines and nets.

The call had ended and I am here working.

He waits, First for a letter from a distant Country. He then waits To go to this country. He goes to the country and waits For the renewal of letters That have stopped coming.

He waits For conversations. He waits To be seen. He waits for songs And poems. He waits for the full Moon every day.

He waits, Clouds drift over it, It hides behind Curtains of lace, curtains of linen, Behind the black hair of a woman Whom the Arabs call Layla. He waits To see her rapturous face.

He waits, Sprouts roots, sprouts branches, The wind laughs at him, the rain Disguises his tears. Woodpeckers Drill his torso. He sees water, He sees people kissing in his shadow.

He waits For someone to bring him news Of the traveler. Only rumors reach Him these days. Some say she Never was and the road has no beginning. Some say she was delayed by wars, Others say that her bones have been licked Clean by lions and vultures in some desert.

He waits Always full of doubt - the negation Of belief, negated by this wait. Time moves on a straight line Which bends at the horizon To arc into a circle.

He moves on Time. Everybody does.