LINES FROM ISMAILI HYMNS 

You shouldn’t be able to hear a word you say 
When you’re addressing silence.

…

In the center of your forehead, right between the brows, is the point of enlightenment.  
It’s turned on by selfless acts and reckless faith.
The minute it ignites, you feel 
Light, lighter, lightest, weightless.

…

You have to become a no one
Empty of fear.
So finally I’ll be able to say to my friends:
God has come at last.
See? She disappeared.

…

From the beginning human beings

Crawled the earth, nameless and scattered, wanting to be loved.
But no.  You have sunk into the sky and darkness.
I know you are the one who made us,
But is that why you hide?
I have never chosen another over you 
Because this earth can’t be my home.

You’re the only one I want to marry.  God!

…

No one believes me but you’ve been gone so long

I don’t know what to do with time.
If I died, would I fall into the past, or the future?
Would I follow you?  Yes.
You put both fear and happiness
And suffering in each of us.
Please take them from me, and I will fall at your feet
Among the shadowed flowers
And watch the river Ganges 
Float by carrying many forms.

Surely you will be in India soon.

ONE SUMMER DAY

On broken stones
By the Kenmare River
Near the ancient family home
The two kneeled down
Before the third was born
And were baptized by a crone.
Lucky them, she believed
In what she was doing
And the environment.
A hail of dandelion fluff—
A patch of long grass—
This town with its seals
Banging against the rocks.
People damned for being
Provincial, rain eternal,
All saving a place for Grandma
With her gin in a basket.

Fanny Howe has written many novels (Radical Love, a collection of five of them published by Nightboat Books) and several books of poetry.  The most recent is Love and I from Graywolf.  She has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Award for Lifetime Achievement, and several other awards for poetry and fiction.