READING POETRY

LESSON 21: ‘BEYOND THE ASH RAINS’ BY AGHA SHAHID ALI

“What have you known of loss/ That makes you different from other men?”

—The Epic of Gilgamesh

When the desert refused my history,

Refused to acknowledge that I had lived

there, with you, among a vanished tribe,

two, three thousand years ago, you parted

the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon curtains,

and beckoned me to the northern canyons.

There, among the red rocks, you lived alone.

I had still not learned the style of nomads:

to walk between the rain drops to keep dry.

Wet and cold, I spoke like a poor man,

 without irony. You showed me the relics

of our former life, proof that we'd at last

found each other, but in your arms I felt

singled out for loss. When you lit the fire

and poured the wine, "I am going," I murmured,

repeatedly, "going where no one has been

and no one will be... Will you come with me?"

You took my hand, and we walked through the streets

of an emptied world, vulnerable

to our suddenly bare history in which I was,

but you said won't again be, singled

out for loss in your arms, won't ever again

be exiled, never again, from your arms.

ANALYSIS

‘Beyond the Ash Rains’ contains many of the archetypal images of landscape and

memory that Ali’s poetry is associated with: desert, rain, history, exile. The poem
suggests that the desert does not acknowledge human definitions of history, and that

the individual may find solace from exile in a relationship.

The poem begins with an epigraph from Gilgamesh that suggests that loss is a

unique experience that differs for each individual: “What have you known of loss/ That

makes you different from other men?” The opening lines of the poem immediately

establish the connection between the severe autonomy of the desert that is isolated

from human habitation, and the histories that are unacknowledged by the natural

world:

When the desert refused my history,

Refused to acknowledge that I had lived

there, with you, among a vanished tribe,

two, three thousand years ago, you parted

the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon curtains,

and beckoned me to the northern canyons.

The beginning of the poem immediately establishes its interest in juxtaposing the

natural world with human history. The idea that the desert can “refuse” a person’s

history gives a sense of authority and autonomy to the planet. The desert has “refused

to acknowledge” that the speaker had once lived there, also indicating perhaps that time
erases the evidence of an individual or even an entire people having lived in a

geographical location.

There are two ways in which the beginning reveals Ali’s preoccupation with magic

realism in poetry. Firstly, the speaker says that “I had lived/ there, with you, among a

vanished tribe,/ two, three thousand years ago”; this implies, impossibly, that he is

millennia old. Secondly, the image of “part[ing]/ the dawn rain, its thickest monsoon

curtains”, gives visual shape to something that is physically impossible: to part the rain

like a curtain. This foreshadows the imagery of the rain in the poem, and set in the

broader context of Ali’s work, it may be observed that rain is often associated in his

poetry with magic realism, as well as with a sense of memory.

Having established a connection between the topography and the history of a

place, Ali goes on to vividly take the sense of loss to a personal level while continuing to

maintain the context of a sense of unbelonging:

There, among the red rocks, you lived alone.

I had still not learned the style of nomads:

to walk between the rain drops to keep dry.

Wet and cold, I spoke like a poor man,

without irony. You showed me the relics

of our former life, proof that we'd at last

 found each other, but in your arms I felt

singled out for loss.

While the word “relics” suggests a sacredness associated with memories of the past, the

words “in your arms I felt/ singled out for loss” and “I had still not learned” indicate that

the relationship has left scars. The image of walking “between the rain drops to keep

dry” again presents an image that is more magical than realistic, suggesting that the

ways of the nomads are so unknown to the speaker that they may as well be magical or

preternatural. Despite the discordance between the two people, it also seems significant

that the speaker is “wet and cold” and seems to have arrived at his former lover’s place

to seek refuge. The phrase “former life” could mean both an earlier time in their lives

and, possibly, literally a previous life or a reincarnation. Alternatively, the poet could be

alluding to the fact that the past leaves echoes of itself in the present, and that the

collective unconscious can harness the shared beliefs or experiences of past members of

one’s community. Ali seems to suggest that a sense of community arises from a shared

geographical location rather than (or as well as) shared cultural norms.

The last three stanzas bring together the threads of individual and communal

histories in the context of the personal relationship that seems to be at the heart of the

poem:

[...] When you lit the fire

and poured the wine, "I am going," I murmured,

repeatedly, "going where no one has been

 and no one will be... Will you come with me?"

You took my hand, and we walked through the streets

of an emptied world, vulnerable

to our suddenly bare history in which I was,

but you said won't again be, singled

out for loss in your arms, won't ever again

be exiled, never again, from your arms.

“When you lit the fire/ and poured the wine”, juxtaposed with the fact that the traveller

is “wet and cold”, indicate that he has been received with a warm welcome. There is a

sense of domesticity and comfort in the idea that when the speaker is cold and

exhausted, there is a place where he can go where he knows that he will be received

with warmth and graciousness. The speaker’s wish to go “where no one has been/ and

no one will be” suggests the desire for a new start, for the invention of a new history,

since the old one remains “unacknowledged” by the desert.

The closing lines of the poem reinforce the idea that the now-reunited lovers are

embarking on a quest to create a new history: “You took my hand, and we walked

through the streets/ of an emptied world, vulnerable/ to our suddenly bare history.”

There is both an exciting newness and an underlying vulnerability in the fact that the

world has now been “emptied.” It seems significant that there are still streets in the new
empty world, since they are a sign of human habitation. This seems to indicate that the

poet is not suggesting a completely new start; the lovers are not like the first people in

the Garden of Eden who have the natural world to themselves. It is clear that the lovers

in the poem have taken it upon themselves to rebuild their world and restart their

history in the context of the past, of the “relics” of the life that they had left behind.

Finally, it also seems significant that it was in the lost history that the speaker had

felt “singled out for loss” in his lover’s arms; there is the implication that this history,

the one they are just embarking on, will not be as cruel as the previous one. The

speaker’s lover promises him that he “won't ever again/ be exiled, never again, from

your arms”. There is a strong sense here that the speaker would prefer to be exiled from

a place or a history rather than from his lover’s arms. In the context of the poem, there

is also the suggestion that it is only through forging connections with other individuals

that a history can be established. Alienation and exile seem intricately connected with

the life of a nomad who does not belong anywhere, and the two of them are still walking

at the end of the poem, indicating that they have not given up the nomad’s way of life.

They seem, however, to have found a way to remain itinerant as well as find a sense of

belonging: not through a geographical location or a shared cultural system, but through

the simple, instinctual act of accepting each other and travelling together.