Young and fierce turned wise
bringing with it the undercarriage
gift of seeing The enemy grew
into his dimensions girded with shades
my clear eyes once missed
Come Sit here beside me:
the sound of those children’s feet
can still be heard Listen to how we
once sounded then When he
was as I was: invulnerable
I will tell you how we charged
at the head of absolutes allegiant armies
beside fidelity in our ears the privilege
of knowing everything except that we two
he and I would be the ones to die for it For all of it
We see the sky and the sky sees us
bring palm to palm in shades of skin
This resonant on-beat pulse
that now brings us the difficult thing
the hard blurry whole of it
photo by Hasadri Freeman
The Old Poet
The old poet seeks no vantage of sight though
the high plain of advantage recommends itself
Not even the ready pastures of grass and shore
where younger minds are roiled by shell and fern
can woo He watches them return ransacked run dry
to seek the thing they had in sightless fever missed
The desert blooms for him without ado, its
occasional splendor understood by he
that knows no other way to do his work
Un-hunted fragments and impressions come
and take their place within his life Without
seeing Atacama he comprehends the riot it unfolds
Its gift like his is given full with flair the earth
unable to resist expending all it holds He echoes
that bestow A life fed by glory conscious of its end
of passing through Fleshed witness not master
photo by Hasadri Freeman
Tristesse
A koha from voice to voice unrecognized
call of bird mimic echo song replay repeat
The sun sets down its day into the basin
grazed earth rim defined blurred edges linger
No wild swans have crossed from England today
only cattle remain one day replaced by new as I
This stage re-set as at this hour in time
The Southern Cross seen naked, old legends returned
On this island of my heart I see it all and take
my fill I know how it must end this moment
this marbled gift true things and we
photo by Ru Freeman
Thoughts for the Unborn
Over the silent roar of distance I wait
for my brother's child As-yet
ungendered this newborn-to-be
will come bearing himself
Unboxed no world has rushed in
to fill her life with categories or titles or
subtexts or annotations or bibliographies
to explain why she is what she is
Unnamed, she waits
Unnamed, he has no enemy
We wait for the gift of innocence
She will bring renewal
a further commitment to all that is sacred:
friendship rice salt family a country
fighting to love despite—
He will bring more than he will receive
We will tremble in our eagerness to prove
ourselves wanting of her gifts
Over the oceans in night to his day,
I wait for word of my brother's child
Across the distance in different time zones
amid the drums of war
we wait for word of children
photo by Ru Freeman
photo by João Carlos
Ru Freeman is an award-winning Sri Lankan and American poet, writer and critic, whose work appears internationally. She is the author of the novels A Disobedient Girl (2009) and On Sal Mal Lane (2013), a New York Times Editor’s Choice, both appearing in translation, and editor of Extraordinary Rendition: American Writers on Palestine (2015) and Indivisible: Global Leaders on Shared Security (2018). Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in American Poetry Review, Poetry, Narrative, The Normal School, Zyzzyva and elsewhere. She teaches in the MFA program at Columbia University. rufreeman.com
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