I WRITE

Within the text are enclosed an infinite number of meanings

that require a plurality of people in their uniqueness,

each one capable of wresting meanings from the signs,

each time inimitable.

Emmanuel Levinas

I am the sun, earthing Levinas’ saying and said,

I am an ocean that waives the ethics of ethics,

cresting essence, being and beyond.

For Devorah, the Other is other

than knowledge says Levinas that is closed like an atom. finite.

Her Otherness unfolds a relating,

deeper dancing our not-knowing into love.

I write my voice

not theirs, the silenced going mad,

the seekers of asylum locked

away unsafe, unsound, Every throbbing one of them.

They cry out in my voice on the wings of now

I wonder if there is a volcano on the islands where we send them

Out of our sight,

A red ash to fly red and settle deadly

upon “not-Australia”.

I search for the refugees research has failed to find; I seek the asylum they could not find in us. I listen for the song of detention

about lotus souls in tortured bodies,

Come, come all who would study and know

to that roomy place Rumi’s field Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing
and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.