the absolute room

THE ABSOLUTE ROOM

We came to a place which was the center of ourselves
in the desert between Aleppo and Hama;
We came to this Roman place where a hundred scents
were built somehow right into the walls.
So the old man and the boy led us through courts
of jasmine, and many other flowers, then

into this great hall where all the scents slayed
each other, and were still, and all
we breathed was pure desert air.

We call
this room the sweetest of them all,
You said.
And I thought: Because there is nothing here.

I knew then that you possessed nothing of me, and I
possessed nothing of you, Dahoum.
We were wealthy and stuffed with a wondrous nothing
that filled the room and everything around.

You looked into my eyes, the windows to my soul,
and said that because they were blue
you could see right through them, holes in my skull,
to the quiet, powerful sky beyond.

- Gwendolyn MacEwen
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