Aga Shahid Ali.......a decade of silence

The country without a post office

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Again I've returned to this country

where a minaret has been entombed.

Someone soaks the wicks of clay lamps in mustard

oil,each night climbs its steps to read messages

scratched on planets.

His finger tips cancel blank stamps

in that archive for letters with doomed

addresses,each house buried or empty.

Empty ,Because so many fled,ran away,

and became refugees there ,in the plains,

Where they must now will a final dewfall

to turn the mountains to glass.They'll see

us through them-see us frantically bury

houses to save them from fire that,like a wall,

caves in.The soldiers light it,hone the flames,

burn our world to sudden papier-mach'e

inlaid with gold,then ash.When the muezzin

died,the city,the city was robbed of every call.

The houses were swept about like leaves

for burning.Now every night we bury

our houses -and theirs,the ones left empty.

We are faithful.On their doors we hang wreaths.

More faithful each night fire again is a wall

and we look for the dark as it caves in.

''We are inside the fire looking for the dark,''

one card lying on the street says.''I want

to be who pours blood.To soak your hands.

Or I''ll leave mine in the cold till the rain

is ink,and my fingers , at the edge of pain.''

The mad guide!The lost speak like this.They haunt

a country when it is ash.Phantom heart,

pray he's alive.I have returned in rain

to find him,to learn why he never wrote.

I've brought cash,a currency of paisleys

to buy the new stamps,rare already,blank,

no nation named on them.Without a lamp

I look for him in houses buried,empty-

He may be alive, opening doors to smoke,

breathing in the dark his ash-refrain:

''Everything is finished,nothing remains.''

I must force silence to be a mirror

to see his voice again for directions.

Fire runs in waves.Should I cross that river?

Each post office is boarded up.Who will deliver

parchment cut in paisleys,my news to prisons?

Only silence can now trace my letters

to him.Or in a dead office the dark panes.