The Friends In Three Scenes Poem by Daniel Brick

for Baharak

There is an immense wall
between us. We can hear
far above the roar of
the King's chariots racing
four abreast on the top.
The King presents the winner,
who displayed the most daring,
to his court and gives him
a lovely golden chalice
inscribed with the imperial
seal. (Next week his subalterns
will place memorial wreaths
on the graves of the losers.)
... We cannot see each other,
no voice can penetrate the alien
stone. But let us walk along
the wall until we sense each
other's presence like a welcome
dream figure. Then we will stop
and face the wall. Touching
its hard, ragged surface
will be like holding air,
soft, pliant, transparent air
in our hands. That sensation
is to touch what friendship is
to the soul. We seek no imperial
favor, we do not feel the allure
of gold or silver. Friendship
is our lasting joy. Meet me there
where we are one in the silence of the wall.

There is a broad river, one of
the aged brown gods, that churns,
and sweeps, and floods the dry
landscape west of the city. We
walk on either side of it despite
its force and deafening noise.
Sometimes I will playfully
speed up, begin to run, and
you will laughing chase me.
Other times we stand still,
each one only a blob of color
to the other on the other bank.
We wave our arms in a kind of
sign language, each smiling
at the other's ingenuity.
And, I admit, sometimes tears
well up in my eyes, because
your figure is so bright,
trapped in a shaft of purest sunlight.

Travelers, whose business or
pleasure takes them far from
our capital city, speak of
a garden on the far side
of the dusty hills of
the high country of the North.
They say the colors shimmer
even from a distance, but explode
in wonder when you draw near.
They say red flowers, blue flowers,
white flowers cluster in their blazing
glory in fields stretching to the horizon.
They say flowering trees with huge green
leaves sheltering delicate yellow interiors
line the banks of rushing silver streams.
Then they tire of talking, and leave us
anxious for their next visit. And I wonder,
if both us lie in separate sleep, clear
our minds of trivial things and picture
those flowers that festoon the earth,
might we not dream that garden
in our separate sleep into one lucid
dream of a common place where we stand side by side....