Weeping for Tammuz

WEEPING FOR TAMMUZ

Was it my window, open to the night

Inviting dark honeysuckled air, giving breath to my dreams

That made him think he could simply

Enter

Unbidden,

And bend his golden head

To kiss my sleeping eyes awake?

I only saw him for a moment (if I really saw him at all):

Golden green shimmering silver goodbye...

But I heard him sigh

And with his kiss my eyes were open to the night

And I took flight

And I saw

Myself, flying, east, into the sun

Hovering wingless over city streets

And I saw lovers

Kissing on sidewalks

Pressed up against rain-slicked doorways

Inhaling each others souls.

And, passing by an open window,

I saw myself

Weeping for Tammuz.

And I turned myself,

And I saw

A blind man, feeling for fruit in the open air marketplace.

Piece by piece, slow open fingers

Lingering to read the mango's sunrise color

By the smoothness of her skin,

Feather-light touches, alive with sympathy

To every demure orange-peel pucker, every jaunty ribbed find.

Empty palms restless, seeking the weight of ripeness

Cupping each perfect pear, just-so,

So easily bruised, yielding its flesh to the barest pressure of an insistent thumb:

And in the blank reflection of his empty-eyed glasses

I saw myself

Weeping for Tammuz.

And I turned myself

And I wanted to go home, back to my blanket sleep,

Return to the carefully crafted contrite comfort

Of a cool and quiet bed for one:

Uninterrupted by the abruptness of love,

Where the sounds of my own heart

Are safely kept muffled behind locked doors,

By vigilante guards with shoot-to-kill orders:

Locked and loaded, patiently patrolling the hallways of my soul, watching for

Any wrong motives

Any wrong moves

Any twitch of desire

Any signs of life...

O, you who woke me, put me back to sleep!

Help me forget kisses, the smell of fruit,

Hands that see better than eyes!

I tried to fly, back to my own sleeping self-

But the weight of my tears kept me earth-bound:

I cried out, voiceless, to the numbing deafness of the night:

Wailing, in the dust upon the ground

Weeping,

Weeping for Tammuz.

(C) 2000 Lorelai Kude All Rights Reserved