Your Unknown Place – A Poem

I so love this poem, and discovering poets from all over the world, and from other eras.  Such poet is Tahir Hamut Izgil, a prominent modernist Uyghur poet, filmmaker, and activist. A leader in avant-garde Uyghur poetry in the 1990s, he is known for poems and films strongly influenced by Uyghur life. Originally from Xinjiang, he is currently living in exile in the United States. I hope you all enjoy this poem as much as I did.

Your Unknown Place –

Here people’s names were not contagious,
we said they were, it came to be.
There was no sand here growing roots,
we said there was, it came to be.
Here time did not drip from the walls,
we said it did, it came to be.
Here loneliness did not multiply,
we said it did, it came to be.
Here a thousand eyes did not fleck the skies,
we said they did, it came to be.
Here there were no fugitive forgettings,
we said there were, it came to be.

Yet our words could undo nothing here,
even the things we brought to be.

February 2016, Ürümchi

Written by: Tahir Hamut Izgil

Source: https://www.asymptotejournal.com