Photo tilts left
in the room of messy flowers
Light splashes shadows
these old silenced walls
Rest your head
for an evening
Lay it down, you wandering traveler
Everything yearned for lives
out of reach but still in sight
Boots on at dawn
Turning page, young seeker
Toss those maps over the ledge
Step one, you are ready
eyes bright with colour
Black and white was just a crack
drawing you in
Your beginning
I am far away now
from everything familiar
It’s after sundown, dark
The air smells of smoke
heavy from bamboo smouldering
Crickets are singing, or katydids
And something else
A woman’s voice rising out of the darkness
Over there near the fields
we rode bicycles past today
She sings
or keens
The melody is in a minor key but
I don’t understand the language
Perhaps it’s a lullaby
I am lying here in this hammock
a young attendant just brought by and hung for me
It’s in that army camouflage pattern
In the courtyard, I saw samples of bombs
grenades and land mines recovered from the landscape here
I am looking at my familiar from a distance
From another angle
This location in the world
I am reading Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale
I read it before, a long time ago
It seemed like brilliant fantasy work then
Science Fiction, a Fantastic Tale
It doesn’t seem like fantasy now, this time
I’ve felt the breath of Possibility.
Have I changed so?
Or has the World changed?
Maybe I have been sleeping
Maybe I’m just waking up.
Look up, you said
sky is changing
Causeway deserted
signal bird calls
This way,
higher.
On this cool mystery morning
on a rise after the rain
Might be you’re the last one standing
soundless these moments remain
Forest life force bounty
breathe in take a full step in view
Mother Earth songs calling
let their melody rest within you
After long absence I return
to this terrace
Softness drips from last night’s rain
Birdsong rises from cedars and red maples
Wind sings praise to the floating world
I sit again among fat brown spiders
Still afraid
but it is they who knew me first
The crowd is
the crowd
You’re either in
or you’re out
The crowd is
always the crowd.
No scenery
out this window
No inspiration
planned for me
No green
No blue
No sunrise or stars
No midnight moon view
No windsong gently swaying
between leaves of tall trees
Ah but I can still find beauty
in the quiet lay of these red bricks
I can imagine
careful hands that set them here
I can count them
I can find marks unique in each one
I can watch shadows for hours
as days and seasons pass
And I can find light
shining back from my Wall
clear through my window
straight into me.
I open my front door
to cool of mist morning
What solace this quiet scene
One step in
One step out
This is the place where I pause
Hover between
I look out upon the landscape
broken hearts lay everywhere
no covers on these windows
no shades no shelter from harsh mouthed mothers of opinion
no words of wisdom or compassion too few hands to care
but I hear night stars still tell wonder stories
and if we listen they will shine our fears away
when we feel lost or sad or lonely
when we’re tossed into chaos winds of if only
silent stars are rising up to guide the way
What will we recall
years from now
Slip on sandals shuffling slow
Three hearts
wisp of a willow
Our thoughts unspoken
as we go
