I can hear in your voice you were born in one country and will die in another, and where you live is where you'll be buried and when you dream it's where you were born, and the moon never hangs in both skies on the same night, and that's why you think the moon has a sister, that's why your day is hostage to your nights, and that's why you can't sleep except by forgetting, you can't love except by remembering. And that's why you're divided: yes and no. I want to die. I want to live. Never go away. Leave me alone. I can hear by what you say your first words must have been mother and father . Even before your own name, mother. Long before amen, father. and you put one word in your left shoe, one in your right, and you go walking. And when you lie down you tuck them
under your pillow, where they give rise to other words: childhood, fate, and rescue . Heaven, wine, return. And even god and d**h are offspring. Even world is begotten, even summer a descendant. And the apple tree. Look and see the entire lineage alive in every leaf and branching decision, snug inside each fast bud, together in flower, and again in the pulp, mingling in the fragrance of the first mouthful and the last. I can tell by your silence you've seen the petals immense in their vanishing. Flying, they build your only dwelling. Falling, they sow shadows at your feet, And when you close your eyes you can hear the ancient fountains from which they derive, rock and water ceaselessly declaring the laws of coming and going.