To Whom It May Concern

Let us explain the matter
without divulging the private relations, e. g.,
the three-legged beast that still swims the Suez,
the Red Sea, and the Mediterranean;
the bombed cities of Beirut, Baghdad, Kabul, Tehran.

Let us only say
that time has shaved off the wavy beard,
lopped off its earlobes, nose, and bits of the chin.
Each day, flakes of limestone
float away.

Look at the broken shoulder, the ailing limbs.
It denies your genes and mine, the pharaonic DNA.
A lion with a human head,
through whose stoned eyes pass
dreams of blue seas and floating grass.

While time covers it with a desert blanket,
a blanket of shot sand, only these limbs shiver.
Tourists call it the Sphinx,
but if it is to keep the word it must not speak—
and break out of the attitude of the past,

solve the riddling silence, the art.
For if it spoke, it might break your heart.

From Sun and Moon and Other Poems by Alamgir Hashmi, 1992