Friday poem: Omar Sabbagh’s ‘Searching the Horizon’

Searching The Horizon

I opened my eyes and my eyes opened

the light that helped them first to arise;

and it was as though a window had forged another window,

working and sculpting the light to show

the drama of sight – how a new horizon

glanced at me, gently, knighting me with angles,

the emanations in a cool and slaking breeze,

and the unmastered day ahead, like a slave still

to each refraction of hope, each ghost

on its way to becoming the fuller filled-out flesh

it wants to be. Lit now, gripped by delight,

I walk among the staple daily shadows

and feel each one sundered below my stepping feet,

the horizon busied now with its batch of unhurt children.

Omar Sabbagh