And what got me through Wednesday Night

This is a passage from one of my favorite poems by Adonis (Ali Ahmad Said), a Syrian poet living in Lebanon.

3

"Braid your hair, my boys, with greener leaves.
We still have verse among us.
We have the sea.
We have our dreams.
'To the steppes of China
we bequeath our neighing horses,
and to Georgia, our spears.
We'll build a house of gold
from here to the Himalayas.
We'll sail our flags in Samarkind.
We'll tread the treasured mosses
of the earth.
We'll bless our blood with roses.
We'll wash the day of stains
and walk on stones as we would walk on silk.

'This is the only way.
For this we'll lie with lightning
and anoint the midewed earth
until the cries of birth
resound, resound, resound.

'Nothing can stop us.
Remember,
we are greener than the sea,
younger than time.
The sun and the day are dice
between our fingers.'

Under the exile's moon
tremble the first wings.
Boats begin to drift
on a dead sea, and siroccos
rustle the gates of the city.
Tomorrow the gates shall open.
We'll burn the locusts in the desert,
span the abyss
and stand on the porch
of a world to be.

'Darkness,
darkness of the sea,
be filled with the leopard's joy.
Help us to sacrifice,
name us anew.
The eagle of the future waits,
and there are answers in its eyes.

'Darkness,
darkness of the sea,
ignore this feast of corposes.
Bring the earth to blossom
with your winds.
Banish plague and teach the very rockas
to dance and love.'

The goddess of the sand prostrates herself.
Under the brichthorn
the spring rises like clocynth from the lips
or life from the sea.
We leave the captive city
where every lantern is a church
and every bee more sacred than a nun."

Excerpted from "Elegy for the Time at Hand"

I read the first stanza of this poem over and over again. "Walk on stones as we would walk on silk." What could be more beautiful than that string of words?