Convert Poem by Tovli Simiryan

To understand
this connection with wandering,
walk near the breath of ocean,
or contemplate love
just before twenty,
with sixty decades to follow;
hastily beg for documentation—a birth
that makes newsprint
or lightweight paperback novels.

Old, white beard, framing eyes that
beckon G-d,
we miss you before you call…
there is never quite enough,
except loss in the parking lots
or near the ferry
that crosses over
beside the old river, pushing
long past these sails
that billowed with exhaustion;

and this pilgrimage,
less perfect than before,
takes hold
brings the few among our nation.


First Appeared in Ariga—August 2005 Copyright ©Tovli Simiryan MMV