Some of us were in the room
that had once been a granary
& was now a studio
to make music out of sound.
Another in one of the grand
bedrooms, editing a film
made from images
of the landscape surrounding
the thick-walled fifteenth-century castle
in which we dwelled.
One was creating a mural
about rivers, another composing
poems from the malevolent roots
of slavery.
I was in my studio,
which had once been a maid’s quarters,
propped on a soft bed
with cream pillows & comforter,
reading Lucretius & his grand poem
On the Nature of Things—
too distracted to write.
Was it too quiet,
a place without chaos?
Travelers from different countries,
in exile from our families, friends, homelands,
each with our own complex
histories & pasts wiped clean,
as if we were the reincarnation
of our former selves.
I looked out my window
at the crumbling stone walls
& fortress of the castle,
at what little had changed
since the grand rooms
held the lord & his family,
his countrymen sheltering from war.
My country was in battle too,
over how people ought to live—
freedoms we’d once taken for granted,
who should be allowed
to cross borders
from one country to another,
as if among the nature of things
we were each not merely
made of atoms.
But let’s get back
to the bird one of us found
who had fallen from her nest
& against our prayers died.
We should not fear death,
Lucretius believed, because
all of us, humans, plants, birds, deer,
are made of matter;
even the soul is material.
There are no gods
& if there are, they don’t care
about us—no afterlife,
no eternal beating
of our hearts;
we are divine
& unique in our living.
Let’s get back to the tall
cypress trees & perfect
red roses climbing
the wall, gardens tended to
with such care you might kiss
the earth, to the terrace
where trees kept us cool.
Let’s not speak about food
made from the bounty
of the vegetable gardens,
wine from the vineyards,
the headless statue
surrounded by greenery
—no one could recall
who she was, why it mattered—
or the games we played at night
as if we were still children.
Come, follow us
down the earthen path
surrounded by forest
on every side (we are all material),
where the sounds of birds & crickets,
the mosquitoes we slapped
from our skin, the measures
& rhythms of air & winds,
that sudden rainfall even
when the sun was out,
kept us, at least momentarily,
from the perils of sorrow,
loss, even loneliness,
from the fear that pressed
against us, sometimes
at night or in the early hours
of the morning,
when we worried
we were not special enough,
had not done enough. We knew
what awaited us, even though
in the scope of things
it rarely mattered,
once we left the fortress
of our epiphanies, the castle walls
of our proclivities,
the eternal tower of our momentary
brightness, where together
we broke bread.