Hand—Stars
The day holds out the palm of its veined hand and you examine its pattern. Your daughter's paintings adorn the floor and walls with a sweet colorful order. Every splash in the summer pool reaches out like the hand of a drowning Ottoman sailor, sinking prayerfully into the Adriatic Sea among an orderly armada of Venetian war ships.
The dusty westbound trucks on the modern silk road point toward Istanbul's shopping malls. Waiting for the eastbound bus, you imagine China across the superlative immensity of Asia. Gracefully, the sun rises and heats the streets, its light bouncing from every shard of glass, soaking into every thirsty leaf, particle and wave, miracle of religion, phenomenon of science.
The folly of our carbon fires follows a kind of monkey puzzle logic-- we eat any fruit from any tree, then blame the snake for our indigestion. Of course, we can not swallow oblivion, so we wallow in our hopelessness,
or else construct distractions, commodity and idolatry-- all useless handy works. It's so hot today only scorpions, and cacti in the windows, are content. The alley smells of a dead cat who died of trash can dysentery and thirst. You see the ants in the sand building underground colonies beneath the scorching surface.
Maybe we thumb-smart mammals will live like moles with computers underground. But you see your daughter living among the stars. You dream even as you wake. As night cools the earth and sky, you ponder the same moon as the prophets.