we come from dust and star and sky,
admire the place from which we came;
on hills and rooves and grass we lie
to taste the thing we have became.

-- how selfish and fickle we are,
how cruel and kind and strange;
like suns that burn too fast, us stars
so bright, and then, so plain.

eons pass and still we lie,
transfixed by that beloved sky,
and people live, love, quickly die
in a sweet but single breath of time.

Under the mango tree where the shade is dark and deep
she waits with years on her skin.

The face though weary with the burden of time
has not yielded to the fate
of having once loved and lost.

She believes the winds from the barren field
will one day carry the rustle of footsteps
raising a song from within earth
that the moment is arrived
for the dead river to rise in tides
and flood her cheeks with the sapplings of
all the unplanted kisses.

When the nights come
the fireflies would sing
love is such a beautiful thing
basking in the glow of her heart.

kindred blue forget me nots
that knot across the glen,
and tie around the willow's hands,
reminding it of when

the wind would sweep across,
make a dancing sea of gold
in the ditch along the path:
the bright marsh marigold.

on a northern shore, the air bites, even in june;

once, it was warm, but that is just a wish now. crouched in a chair,

I feel small raindrops brush over the pages of my book,

shaking as my stiff fingers flip through it on this slow day. This is the port where

the rich americans flock on their cruise, gold chained and wrapped in lovely fur coats,

while the people down here wear their thin uniforms and wake before dawn.

sitting as the scissors trim, hair falling to the floor all dark and wet,

I watch her twirl fragments into sections, watch the sharp, quick movements,

and I gaze, haphazardly, at the girl in the mirror

who sits within herself, makes faces when the brush pulls too hard, smiles slightly when our eyes meet,

and that is when I stop watching the hairdresser but her face instead,

that girl, my sister,

so beautiful and sweet.