I should have gone to touch the ocean
And watch the golden sun disk rise
Above the line of the horizon
In this one life at least one time;
/
I should have let white winds embrace me
Up on the sharpest mountain peaks;
I should have dared Saharan heat to melt me
As I chased after desert ghosts and visions;
/
I should have learned forbidden spells and curses
And in my heart reforged them into prayers;
I should have fought, not run, from battles;
I should have bled, and won, and lost;
/
I should have easier abandoned
Those who would waste a second of my life,
I should have easier surrendered,
And watched with calm the passing of my hours;
/
I should have doubled and returned
Each smallest gift I have been granted;
I should have used up every breath that
I did not know the worth of till tonight;
/
Tonight it is too late to travel
To see the sun spread wings over the sea;
Tonight’s no time to climb a mountain
For tonight it is monsoon season;
/
Tonight all desert jinns are sleeping
A sleep no human can disturb;
Tonight no witch, no ghost, no demon
Need teach me: by myself I’ll learn
/
That fights are only for the living,
That blood, victories and defeats
Are merely clouds, forever crossing
The skies above the river Styx;
/
I fidget in my empty pockets:
What little that I had is gone;
All I have left is but two coins
To pay the ferryman Charon