The Circle

“The Appointment in Samarra”
(as retold by W. Somerset Maugham [1933])

The speaker is Death

There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threating getsture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra.

This Morning

My Lover Gave Me Green Leaves

by Josephine Dickinson

 

My lover gave me green leaves
with the mud of the garden on them,
radishes sharp and red,
nasturtium flames.

 

He gave me the tender heart
of a cabbage, its glossy coat,
a loaf of bread studded deep
with seeds.

 

He gave me the note
the blackbird
I’d cried at the blackness of
by the river sang.

 

He gave me the struck fire
of the thoughts
in his mind—
flint on flint.

 

He gave me the taste,
direct on his tongue,
of the syllables their embers
did not destroy.

 

He gave me his word,
the word of an Adam—
a promise,
should he set eyes on the sun.

 

He gave me a drop of the dew
to hold.
To see my face in it.
To look through.

 

He gave me,
in the chrisomed palm
of his empty hand—
a gasp of joy.

Beyond

Fog Horns

by David Mason

 

The loneliest days,   
damp and indistinct,   
sea and land a haze.   
   
And purple fog horns   
blossomed over tides—   
bruises being born   
   
in silence, so slow,   
so out there, around,   
above and below.   
   
In such hurts of sound   
the known world became   
neither flat nor round.   
   
The steaming tea pot   
was all we fathomed   
of   is and   is not .   
   
The hours were hallways   
with doors at the ends   
opened into days   
   
fading into night   
and the scattering   
particles of light.   
   
Nothing was done then.   
Nothing was ever   
done. Then it was done.

The End of Shopping

The Window, at the Moment of Flame

by Alicia Ostriker

 

And all this while I have been playing with toys
A toy power station a toy automobile a house of blocks

 

And all this while far off in other lands
Thousands and thousands, millions and millions—

 

You know—you see the pictures
Women carrying their bony infants

 

Men sobbing over graves
Buildings sculpted by explosion

 

Earth wasted bare and rotten—
And all this while I have been shopping, I have

 

Been let us say free
And do they hate me for it

 

Do they hate me