Soot by Kaveh Akbar

Soot
Kaveh Akbar

               Sometimes God comes to earth disguised as rust,
chewing away a chain link fence or mariner’s knife.
               From up so close we must seem
clumsy and gloomless, like new lovers

                         undressing in front of each other
                                      for the first time. Regarding loss, I’m afraid
                         to keep it in the story,
                                      worried what I might bring back to life,

               like the marble angel who woke to find
his innards scattered around his feet.
               Blood from the belly tastes sweeter
than blood from anywhere else. We know this

                         but don’t know why—the woman on TV
                                      dabs a man’s gutwound with her hijab
                         then draws the cloth to her lips, confused.
                                      I keep dreaming I’m a creature pulling out my claws

               one by one to sell in a market stall next to stacks
of pomegranates and garden tools. It’s predictable,
               the logic of dreams. Long ago I lived in Heaven
because I wanted to. When I fell to earth

                         I knew the way—through the soot, into the leaves.
                                      It still took years. Upon landing, the ground
                         embraced me sadly, with the gentleness
                                      of someone delivering tragic news to a child.

MARGINALIA

1.
Day 31 of The Sealey Challenge. Today’s offering is Calling a Wolf a Wolf by Kaveh Akbar.

2.
What does it mean to confront our deepest wounds—to name our fears and the darkness within us—without flinching? I loved this book so much and how it explores the personal and often painful journey of self-discovery. Through a series of intensely lyrical poems, the poet delves into the complexities of identity and the relentless search for meaning.

3.
This collection is a meditation on the struggle to reconcile the many facets of oneself—the addict, the believer, the skeptic. This work is both a confession and a reckoning, using language to navigate the terrain of the poet’s experience with addiction and recovery. The poems evoke both the beauty and brutality of the human condition, illustrating how our desires, fears, and flaws are all part of what makes us who we are.

4.
There is also an interplay between the physical and spiritual existence—the poet navigates the delicate balance between the burdens of the body and the desires of the soul, capturing the tension between pain and beauty, despair and redemption.

5.
In a world where language often fails to capture the full scope of our experiences, what I love so much about these poems is that they remind us that the act of naming our demons—of speaking our truths out loud—is both a form of liberation and a way to reclaim our power.