Member-only story
The Search For Lost Songs
~ what we love we bury ~
Why do we dig up buried cities?
Just as we are
They were, just
As they did, we do.
All our lives
We stand involved
With earth — when
It’s not mud-pies in
Warm soft hands, it’s
Clay feet of a toppled god
In your face
And then there is
This reflexive exercise
Inherited from our cousins
The rodents and other quadrupeds —
What we love
We bury, what
We fear we bury
What we excrete we bury
We inter what ought to roam the winds —
Rhapsodies sublime,
Everyday miracles.
Acts as natural as starlings
Wheeling curlicues in blue skies
Words like cotyledon,
Zabangu, madrepore;
Organza ribbon syllables
Carmine kisses.
And yet we search.
Because we have kicked dirt
Over remembrances that rock the gut
Heaped it tight to muffle pagan song,
Compacted it so that no wildflower
Opens a dead Jannisary’s eye-
Is that why we dig up buried cities?
Farida Haque
