Dark, this
restive hour, when
I search for a secret
peace, that lies lurking in the heart,
lost moon,

pre-dawn,
before worry
rises to shine on the furlough
when grey the twilight in furtive
retreat:

this hour,
when winds summon
birds to the distant realms
when little voices rise on beaming
star lakes.

I am the river bleeding rivulets at its mouth,
I am time, many branched.

I was a woman who came of heart, love, hope:
I was thrown out of my hearth.

Alone in this harsh winter, the broken woman works the coal in the shanty town. She is all toil and fate. She is, is but a footnote in our capital culture. She has no wealth and she has lost all.

No education worth a job. No salary worth a home. Age is not on her friendly side. So she goes abandoned by the river, discarded jewel.

She went home, back home to where her father came from. There they called her a foreigner, and said she did not belong. She was western in the east, and an oriental in the west. She did not belong.

She was sent here to these rugged mountains by a twist of fate.  No one told her story. She was forgotten like a grave in the hills. Her wails are the whirlwinds that rise hooding mysteries up the slopes.

Un-clapped cymbal, wind chime, song bowl and ney, unsung songs that compete for attention. Time, many branched.

She won. Brave woman, she won. She fought her fate and said 'I will'. The fire in her eyes stoked people's hearts. They welcomed her home and called her 'Khedi'. She's a guide to adventurers who want to be lost.

I chose this timeline. I jumped in and ran my dinghy down this gorge and emerged into a world of sparkling light.

A puff of cigar in, mist, out
on the street, shrouding the
tracks and missed heart aches;

this morning, time,
is not kept by the ticking clock.

Only one vehicle has crossed the road.

Mellow sun warming up the snow
forever burying the tracks out;

The stubble's scruffy, and heart,
as dishevelled as the sheets;

Empty cups, full of memories -
and stained of the night's wine;

In the corners the embers still crackle:

leaning back on ease chair,
wondering
who it was that left early
this misty morning;

Dont talk to me about sense-vense -
do you, or do you not?
tell me this much;

Don't go zig-zag, jibber-jabber,
zither; look I don't care of
money-shoney,

this caste-vaste, mummy-daddy
and the society;

We could might never deny this,
pow-wows cannot measure this,

do you, or do you not?
That is, is all there is.

the night sky, empty of all stars
arose from her rug of clouds
and whispered in the ears

nothing means nothing
echoing endlessly in the valley

nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing
nothing means nothing

there is a peace of emptiness
that passeth all understanding

empty of all sensation,
that lies bearing everything,

silent witness of the stars
the mute survivor of endless deaths.

There is a Polestar in my head pointing
constantly to you: wonder woman, I can
smell the fragrances in your unfurled hair
fluttering in the winds drunk of the earth
wet with the promise of coming rains.

Though all coloured shadows, these be,
images that I dwell amongst, cut rough
they are, my fingers bleed at their edges:
I am in a kaleidoscope of a distant viewer,
the secret turner of the wheels of our fates.

I keep searching for you by the banks of
a lake draped in receding shroud of mists,
at the place where the river bends, teary
eyes moist in memories and where the
the whole world's upturned in her *****.

It must be the wood, that waded into
our home one spring and snatched you off
into her depths; Or that I am a conjurer -
I conjured you into my life desolate in
springs; I conjured you out in the rains.

All the eddies are time-warps that hold
smiles and tears, embalmed, hugging one
another like old loves, that you hop on
crossing spates and reaching for the caves
that line the edges of the horizon hills.

I thought you were my life. I grew my life around this life.
You and them were all I had.

Lost home when voice broke,
now this wind that scatters all -
peregrine again.

How do I start anew? What part of me do I say is not me
now and where do I find the I was before us?

What part of the mist
is mountain-tears and what part
the last monsoon cloud?

The heart is a hollow of the bowl-song, an unrung peal
of the untolled bell, sullen tree laden with loss

First snow of deep night,
silence has a colour now -
a hue called longing.

But I must let go. Transitory, the joys of our life, like
the distant lights disappearing at dusk behind the hills

Go, larks, speeding east -
all my ***** loves set free,
now rises the truth.

I was free, always free. The receptacles are gone, but love
finds new vessels, new vehicles.

Emptiness is full:
the shell has all the colours -
gone the jezebels
but still rich the air in hues
that more can dip in and drink