In the fleeting moments.

Gold adorns the water.
Silken petals of tulips and the juice of strawberries
staining lips.

Hafiz, oh Hafiz, I have not sipped love,
light is lost and flesh taken
but mind and soul are mine.

A man approaches, limping, white shirt, and
pain in the dark eye. A wanderer
blown by winds we both know.

Numbers spin on facts, history unravels.
We do not touch but speak, ruminate,
Khalifa, what have you seen?
His belly grumbles, hands gesture,
but he does not take a strawberry.

It is thought that transpires, questions
I cannot answer, but he listens anyway.
Here, over there that is a good place to eat,
the ships once sailed, the land once
was whole

the water is both salted and fresh,
moving to the moon's will.
The land is fertile, the people stagnant.
Do they come here to fade?

Another man approaches, young, virile.
We do not touch, we do not speak.
A couple, still dressed for work,
talking quietly, touching newly.
An old man captures the moment and
peers at the compass.

I take a bite and my hair tangles in my teeth.
A cormorant flees.
I feel sick from the strawberries.
I feel sick from the loss.

The water is golden, and it has turned.
The ducks gather their kin, but cawing the
gulls crowd and drown their ling.

At a distance, hidden under hat (like me),
glasses, another man watches all
creeping closer

Insects adorn me and I am still,
though the river rises, fed from the sea.
I am thirsty, Hafiz, so thirsty.