Spirtual Kabul Poem by Michael Timothy Rose

The lines stretch far and infinitely
along Kabuli mountains.
The lines stretch.
Millions
of lines,
Infinite
lines,

Sun lines which speak shades of foreign mispoken
culture and such clouded, beautiful color,
speak the voices, the sweet voices,
a thousand splendid suns,
a thousand splendid lives who wait
like the shadow of a night
like the sun of morning, who
as shadows

or as pieces of Koran
await salvation, where
falling, praying into the East or West toward Mecca, closing
breaths and eyes
atop moonlight rooftops,

all is the same;
when sun flies, they are Kabul- waiting and loving.
They see, that it is all the same. One line. One sun. One Alla.
The multitude of all millions.

Not one could count the moons that shimmer on her roofs,
nor the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls

that love in her mountains
and live as though it were religion
in the spiraling underbelly of her endurable form.