September 2019

The Fissure People

A fissure in the gorgewas the last thing I expected butas the water issued forthin a whirlpool of decadent clarityI felt the suffering of centuries in a placecalled the tear duct of infinite sorrowby a tribe that predated the Cherokee.Tadpoles the color of kidneysunderwater skipped away from mywading legs that knew not theirtrajectory in swirling waters thatsuperseded my own force. This is wherenature rewrites my history, where iterodes as it evolves.Geology says the Appalachians areolder than the Rockies and I quiver at the pathan ancient arrow arched its way towardsdeer or elk. It is written in stonehow old the dead may be and how littlethe living remember of ancient cracks intheir genealogy.The arrow finds its home in the base of mymemory tacking a hieroglyph from regretful spiritsin the spectrum of a sleepwalker coming to drinkfrom the source.

About the Author

Khalil Elayan is a Senior Lecturer of English at Kennesaw State University, teaching mostly World and African American Literature. His other interests include finishing his book on heroes and spending time in nature on his farm in north Georgia. Khalil’s first poem “Sana’a Sunrise” ( https://www.tribes.org/web/2019/1/31/sanas-sunrise ) was recently published in A Gathering of the Tribes magazine, while his most recent two poems “Broken Bird” and “Sometimes I Feel Like Darth Vader” have been published in Dime Show Review and About Place Journal, respectively; one of his essays appears in the book Teachers as Avatars: English Studies in the Digital Age published by Hampton Press, Inc. He has also written two journalistic essays covering the Arab Spring.