Lime

By Yusef Komunyakaa b. 1947 Yusef Komunyakaa

The victorious army marches into the city,

& not far behind tarries a throng of women

Who slept with the enemy on the edge

Of battlements. The stunned morning

Opens into a dust cloud of hooves

& drums. Some new priests cradle

Stone tablets, & others are poised

With raised mallets in a forest of defeated

Statuary. Of course, behind them

Linger the turncoats & pious

Merchants of lime. What’s Greek

Is forged into Roman; what’s Roman

Is hammered into a ceremony of birds

Headed east. Whatever is marble

Burns in the lime kilns because

Someone dreams of a domed bathhouse.

Yusef Komunyakaa, “Lime” from Talking Dirty to the Gods. Copyright © 2000 by Yusef Komunyakaa. Used by permission of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, LLC,
www.fsgbooks.com. All rights reserved. Caution: Users are warned that this work is protected under copyright laws and downloading is strictly prohibited. The right to reproduce or transfer the work via any medium must be secured with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.

Source: Talking Dirty to the Gods (Farrar Straus and Giroux, 2000)

Biography

In his poetry, Yusef Komunyakaa weaves together the elements of his own life in short lines of vernacular to create complex images of life in his native Louisiana and the jungles of Vietnam. From his humble beginnings as the son of a carpenter, Komunyakaa has traveled far to become a scholar, professor, and prize-winning poet. In 1994, he claimed the Pulitzer Prize and the $50,000 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award for his Neon . . .

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