In Another Country by Philip Levine

In Another Country

A man spreads out dried fruit

on an old blanket and lets the flies

descend in a frenzy. When I try to shoo

them away he squats down to eye level,

takes my right hand delicately in his,

shakes his head, and mumbles

what might be a prayer or words

of advice or a curse. I don’t know

because no one here—neither the sellers

nor the buyers—speaks a language

I understand. An old grandfather

whose white hair halos his head

sits cross-legged on the damp grass

smoking his pipe, his eyes closed.

His wares: a pyramid of stained teeth.

Shall I assume he is the dentist

of the town? There is no town, only

fields of long grass blowing in the wind

and beyond the wind the gray mountains.

A young woman, her forehead

and cheeks a web of delicate tattoos,

holds out a bowl of red powder.

Her eyes are so alive I have to

look away. She licks a forefinger,

then jabs it into the powder and offers

me a taste. Blue and white pennants

fly from the tent poles. Women and children

on muleback stream down from the hills

or from nowhere. The powder tastes

like nothing I know, not bitter like

orange rind nor sweet like ground

rose petals nor bland like dyed flour.

I had heard there were storks nesting

on the haystacks and on the tallest

chimneys of the remote villages,

and that wild, black-winged falcons

circled the fields all day keeping

watch over the land, feeding on whatever

came to rest. I saw none of that;

the only birds were tiny and caged,

beating their wings against the bars,

chattering like distant voices in dreams.

I’ve forgotten how I got there. I know

I knelt to a cold stream to wash my face

and wakened to music, an odd beat,

a melody I’d heard before. I followed

the sound over a rise to the open field

where the sun poured down its grace

on the long grass, the animals, the men

and women. The wind kept prodding

at my back as though determined

to push me away from where I was,

fearful, perhaps, I would come to rest.