The Country Without a Post Office by Agha Shahid Ali

The Country Without a Post Office 

 …letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away. 

—GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS 

1 

Again I've returned to this country 

where a minaret has been entombed.

Someone soaks the wicks of clay lamps 

in mustard oil, each night climbs its steps 

to read messages scratched on planets. 

His fingerprints cancel blank stamps 

in that archive for letters with doomed 

addresses, each house buried or empty. 

Empty? Because so many fled, ran away, 

and became refugees there, in the plains, 

where they must now will a final dewfall 

to turn the mountains to glass. They'll see 

us through them—see us frantically bury 

houses to save them from fire that, like a wall, 

caves in. The soldiers light it, hone the flames, 

burn our world to sudden papier-maché 

inlaid with gold, then ash. When the muezzin 

died, the city was robbed of every Call. 

The houses were swept about like leaves 

for burning. Now every night we bury 

our houses—and theirs, the ones left empty. 

We are faithful. On their doors we hang wreaths. 

More faithful each night fire again is a wall 

and we look for the dark as it caves in. 

2 

"We're inside the fire, looking for the dark,” 

one card lying on the street says. “I want 

to be he who pours blood. To soak your hands. 

Or I'll leave mine in the cold till the rain 

is ink, and my fingers, at the edge of pain, 

are seals all night to cancel the stamps.” 

The mad guide! The lost speak like this. They haunt 

a country when it is ash. Phantom heart, 

pray he's alive. I have returned in rain 

to find him, to learn why he never wrote. 

I've brought cash, a currency of paisleys 

to buy the new stamps, rare already, blank, 

no nation named on them. Without a lamp 

I look for him in houses buried, empty—

He may be alive, opening doors of smoke, 

breathing in the dark his ash-refrain: 

“Everything is finished, nothing remains.” 

I must force silence to be a mirror 

to see his voice again for directions. 

Fire runs in waves. Should I cross that river? 

Each post office is boarded up. Who will deliver 

parchment cut in paisleys, my news to prisons? 

Only silence can now trace my letters 

to him. Or in a dead office the dark panes. 

3 

“The entire map of the lost will be candled. 

I'm keeper of the minaret since the muezzin died. 

Come soon, I'm alive. There's almost a paisley 

against the light, sometimes white, then black. 

The glutinous wash is wet on its back 

as it blossoms into autumn’s final country—

Buy it, I issue it only once, at night. 

Come before I'm killed, my voice canceled.” 

In this dark rain, be faithful, Phantom heart, 

this is your pain. Feel it. You must feel it. 

“Nothing will remain, everything's finished,” 

I see his voice again: “This is a shrine 

of words. You'll find your letters to me. And mine 

to you. Come soon and tear open these vanished 

envelopes.” And I reach the minaret: 

I'm inside the fire. I have found the dark. 

This is your pain. You must feel it. Feel it, 

Heart, be faithful to his mad refrain

For he soaked the wicks of clay lamps, 

lit them each night as he climbed these steps 

to read messages scratched on planets. 

His hands were seals to cancel the stamps. 

This is an archive. I've found the remains 

of his voice, that map of longings with no limit. 

4 

I read them, letters of lovers, the mad ones, 

and mine to him from whom no answers came. 

I light lamps, send my answers, Calls to Prayer 

to deaf worlds across continents. And my lament 

is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent 

to this world whose end was near, always near. 

My words go out in huge packages of rain, 

go there, to addresses, across the oceans. 

It's raining as I write this. I have no prayer. 

It's just a shout, held in, It's Us! It's Us! 

whose letters are cries that break like bodies 

in prisons. Now each night in the minaret 

I guide myself up the steps. Mad silhouette, 

I throw paisleys to clouds. The lost are like this: 

They bribe the air for dawn, this their dark purpose. 

But there's no sun here. There is no sun here. 

Then be pitiless you whom I could not save—

Send your cries to me, if only in this way: 

I've found a prisoner's letters to a lover—

One begins: “These words may never reach you." 

Another ends: “The skin dissolves in dew 

without your touch.” And I want to answer: 

I want to live forever. What else can I say? 

It rains as I write this. Mad heart, be brave. 

(for James Merrill) 

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Glossary of Key Terms

• Minaret: A tall slender tower, typically part of a mosque, with a balcony from which a muezzin calls Muslims to prayer. In the poem, it is described as "entombed," suggesting a loss of traditional religious or cultural function.
• Muezzin: The person appointed at a mosque to lead and recite the Call to Prayer (Adhan) for every event of prayer and worship. His death in the poem signifies a silencing of traditional calls and order.
• Paisleys: A distinctive intricate pattern resembling a curved teardrop or kidney shape. In the poem, they are used as a form of currency and a medium for messages, representing an unconventional and desperate form of communication.
• Ash-refrain: Refers to the recurring phrase, "Everything is finished, nothing remains." It signifies the ultimate desolation and destruction caused by the conflict, a mournful echo of what has been lost.
• Doomed addresses: Refers to the addresses on letters that will never reach their recipients due to the societal breakdown. It symbolises the futility of communication in a ravaged land.
• Phantom heart: Represents the speaker's disembodied, pained spirit or conscience, wrestling with grief and the search for connection in a desolate world.
• Archive: A collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people. In the poem, it is a collection of lost or unsent letters, representing the unwritten history of suffering and longing.
• Clay lamps: Simple lamps that burn oil, often used in traditional settings. In the poem, they are lit by the keeper of the minaret to read messages, symbolising a persistent, albeit dim, light of communication and knowledge.
• Dewfall: The falling of dew. In the poem, "will a final dewfall to turn the mountains to glass" suggests a longing for a transformation that would allow clarity and vision, to see through the suffering.
• Papier-maché: A composite material consisting of paper pieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, and then dried. In the poem, the world is burned to "sudden papier-maché," suggesting a flimsy, easily destroyed reality.