“Don’t know how long it will take to bloom,/but I want to make a start/tomorrow.”
I want to plant an olive tree
in the yard.
Don’t know how long it will take to bloom,
but I want to make a start
tomorrow.
Fill the short days of my public life
with the expectation of its birth,
wonder through the long stretches
of my unconsciousness
over the mysteries of growing,
imagine the powers of genesis
at work.
Because, I know it.
Somewhere, sometime,
in days past,
between the seed and the soil,
spear and space,
a treaty of peace was signed:
the earth would claim autonomy no more;
the seed would admit the utter loneliness
of its torrential strength.
It must have been a special night
the night of the treaty
with even the moon
mating with the sky
not as a king its subject
but as a noble knight
his loved one.
When this special night comes again
I will leave the garment of my knowledge
loose
for nudity to enter us and clothe us both
in harmony.
Youlika Masry, a dual citizen of Greece and the United States, completed her legal education in Greece and France and also studied political theory in the United States. In addition to publishing poetry, she writes and translates books and essays in literature; the social sciences; religion and theology.
