The Flute

        Books read backwards.

        Jaffar translated
        Kahil Gibran's The Flute
        (The Song).
        The text I read in English
        was pretty

            But Jaffar's unrhymed
              pure translation
              is so much more moving
        the pretty words replaced
            with depth
                the gasp... the last breath of life.

poem copyright © 2000 Anne Selden Annab