Solitary Sonzal, and: Visionary Sonzal
- Solitary Sonzal, and: Visionary Sonzal
Solitary Sonzal
Whose voice was that, here, where I lie alone?Look at you, said Eros. Scared, shy, alone.
I dreamt my dreaming of youBrought us together.
I love you as only dust can love you.I dreamt us swept up on a gust together.
I alone have vanished. Look above you:Nothing and nothing, thrust together.
Breather of secrets, Do I sigh alone?
I fear love. But I fear regret. I made you, said Eros. I alone.
Cautious men die old, Amit. They also die alone. [End Page 32]
Visionary Sonzal
Keen eyes read the top row, staring straight ahead until the words unfocus.G, then something, then D . . . If only that middle letter were in focus!
On this eye chart, every focal point is a vanishing point.Desire dilates pupils. We can’t keep the world in focus.
Did you see your blinded savior when he stood here bleeding?Or did the half-light from his sockets blur your focus?
Glassy-eyed architect, you’ve pored over the heavens long enough.What’s pouring over us is rain. Train your eyes on earth now. Focus.
Some eyes see the world as it one day might be. It is the compassionate who look away.
Unless art is a glass of acid flung at downcast reading eyes. The most God-focused people are the last to look away.
The world’s a Magic Eye illusion. Focus beyond the surface, And the suffering emerges. Amit, why do you look away? [End Page 33]
amit majmudar is a novelist, poet, translator, essayist, and diagnostic nuclear radiologist. His latest books are Godsong: A Verse Translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, with Commentary and the novel Sitayana. A historical novel, Soar, and a poetry collection, What He Did in Solitary, are forthcoming in 2020. His work has appeared in The Best American Poetry, the New Yorker, Poetry, The O. Henry Prize Stories 2017, The Best American Essays 2018, and the New York Times.
