summer garbage below
stench rises like yeast
to this fourth floor trap
I strip, circle a dot on a map
a different heat rises

the Tao says
enjoy your food, your family
your garden, your neighbor -
I hear roosters crow
in another country

I am bound to you, I said
I am bound to you, you said
cords of haste waste tangles
underlying current flowing blithe -
forgotten

wave
boundless ocean
wave
boundless ocean
wave boundless.

The rubber tree glimmers in fragrant rain,
dust sliding back to earth in pouring notes.
Grim greyness leaves to green limp veins, ribs, blades;
wet breathing pores, refreshed with clemency.

Arrive so I forget when you depart.
Arrive so I forget when you hit out
with your unkind departures, exits free.
Arrive so I forgive, forget, abide.

This dance is not just mine but yours, my foe.
This dance is not just ours but Time's to move,
unspooling clouds of film to fill the hours
so Time dissolves, enthralling hearts with joy.

To throng today with thoughts of your goodbyes.
To throng today with thoughts of endless Time
is greyness; the dance of rain unheeding
the stealing back of grey, of grime, of thirst.

The spool unfolds the hues of dusty breath.
The spool unfolds the hues of endless thought.
For brown a scarred hill, raging red for prey;
the clean of green departs, the screen remains.

Then why do I romance with you, my foe?
Then why do I romance with you in dreams?
Infringing sleep where thoughts no longer flow.
Then stilling colors all, the Screen remains.

Cloud and snow spume
drift about your summit
veiling your face
Ma Nanda Devi
fixing my gaze to eternity

Rising like a giant shard of
rock carved over a million years,
snowfields scoured by avalanches, your steepled
peak a vast cathedral

Impossibly tall and steep
you rise abruptly over a
guardian ring of summits
witness to your inner realms of being,
the outer gorge of Rishi Ganga's roar

Climbers say in higher climes
light contrasts with darkness, flower leas with worn ridges, fear with elation
O paradox of the sublime
your name means Joy, enduring Joy

The veil lifts, was it the smoke of fires lit
by sages on your summit?
Your natural symmetry of two identical peaks suddenly at ease
is visible from my cottage window.

Joints throb – knees, back, neck;
Mind dwells on the pain like a ball
bouncing down each step with purpose.
At the last step the pain is unbearable.
I close my eyes, search for the current within -
feeble, intermittent, unheeding.
I watch it with purpose. Till it heeds.
I creak down the steps,
carry the ball back,
hold it on my knees -
still warm with
throbbing;
slowly cool
slowly peaceful.