Taufiq Rafat



                         Lights


The car whispers down
the hill road.
Its lights            gouge out
                                       a shifting
                                       hollow of
                                                   brightness
except at the turns
where they wander off
                        into unsure space

But wait!

What lights are those
            pricking
            the distant
            mountaintops
            each
            one
            alone?

Starlight and a thin mist
deepen the mystery.

One is tempted to call them elfin

for what            kind of men
would struggle up those backbreaking slopes
all their maizebread goatmilk days
to achieve such
loneliness?


Taufiq Rafat, Arrival of the Monsoon: Collected Poems, 1947-1978,
Vanguard Books, 1985.