I left her behind,
standing at the door,
waiting.
I walked away, far, very far.
She did not know
that I would never return.
A dog went away,
a nun went away,
a week passed, and then a year.
Rain washed away
the footprints of my feet,
grass grew on the road.
And year after year,
like stones,
like one stone falling after another,
the years descended upon her head.
Then war arrived.
Like a volcano of blood,
children and houses were murdered,
yet the girl did not die.
Fire spread across the open fields.
The calm yellow gods
who had meditated for a thousand years
fell from their temples, shattered,
they could no longer dream.
That sweet house, that veranda
where I once slept on a hanging bed,
the pink tree with palm-like scattered leaves,
the chimney, the ancient ripples of water—
everything was crushed,
everything burned.
Where a city once stood,
there remained only
charcoal, twisted iron,
the horrific heads of dead stone statues,
and a single black stain of blood.
And the girl
was still waiting for me.