The exile dies and
finds he’s home
 
All lamented fig trees and
cups of pungent coffee
 
sweet steam in twists above them
 
All horses tied to fences
lonely without their donkeys
 
in long green pastures
 
All glimpses of far ocean
across the barbed wire of enemy territory
 
now held in a divinely vibrant wisp in the air
for a split second before dispersal
 
at lickety-split speed over the earth’s mirror
as the world’s top spins below
 
And the grieving exile opens his sapphire eyes
now polished to a precious sheen
 
on unforeseen landscapes not exactly
reassembled from the precise gazes in his
 
poems but partaking of certain
mosaic resemblances puzzled together
 
And also sees Paradise Gate open before him
and all his doubts and denials
 
now banished as brutally as he was
into inconsequential territories
 
afloat under fig trees
wrapped in fresh roasted
 
swirls of coffee
 
at home at last
among departed comrades