“nagugma ak sa imo”
i remember you once told me this
as we lingered on a riverbank
for the sunset.
how can i unlove my mother tongue
when it sounds like a tune
that emanates from your lips

thick fog starts lifting, slow but sure
the horizon shows off pink and orange
earth gratefully sinks into gentleness,
a familiar face forgot for far too long
the timid smile of hope peeks out from the clouds

cool air billows, the calming waves
breathe away the aches and pains
bright sun kisses gently, warm
eyes lifted to the heavens
body lighter on the ground
battered, bruised, and bleeding, but
roots find their balance
push forward through the soil
confident, start remembering where to go
shy petals show their faces, soft and fragile
at first it's all blinding, with eyes the sun forgot
but bright color swells and they are beautiful again
the flower idly sways, in unfamiliar bliss  
its petals, roots, and leaves drink in
the golden honey rays of warmth
almost thankful for the winter's harsh and bitter brutal
torture
now spring is so much sweeter

he said, “man is a wicked thing”
she said “and theres not one womb to blame”

               but I was Eve in a poppy seed
           and I grew to be the thing you hate

THE SMELL OF TIME

my shadow
stick in hand
leads me through streets

as if flesh and
blood were unreal
the cobbles try to trip me

the sun
falls like rain
making golden the town

a squashed pomegranate
its seeds scattered
on a yellow patch of light

the smell of time
almost unbearable to the dead
and to the living

an unescorted soap bubble
ventures across the street
bursts on a cat's whiskers

the cat black as black
lives in its own private time
independent of the world's

for a fleeting second as I
pass by and appear in
a reflection on a brass door ****

an old woman
drowning in a shadow
becomes a shadow

her violet eyes close
time winds backwards to
her first kiss

my shadow escapes
leaving me all alone
wondering who I am

a ghost's laughter
time is
nowhere to be seen

*

All the disconnected joined up in an emotional join-the-dots...what the mind in camera mode elects to notice...the happenstance of life...an emotional osmosis...culminating in the death of the lady with the "Elizabeth Taylor eyes."

I had passed by her when she was alive and when I returned I heard people speak of her death...I didn't know her....but she was said to have been a great beauty in her youth and was much sought after and fought over.

She had just eaten her rice congee with rousong and zha cai as she did everyday at the same time.

The details were all totally independent of each other and were busy just happening to themselves. I was only aware of the woman's presence in passing and when I passed back that way she had vanished and a crowd was in her place debating all the details of her life....hence my knowing of them and so all the beads of thought that can happen at a moment's notice got strung as a necklace of happenings and her death which I hadn't witnessed except from overhearing the witnesses speak of her provoked the last three lines and how easy it is to be here and not here in the time that Time evaporates. The cat with the bubble on its whiskers was the last thing I observed before I entered the circumstance and commotion of her death.

OUT OF SIGHT
( for Shyam )

A constellation
comes to rest

amongst the branches
of a young tree

plays with
her leaves

for a little while

then when I turn
my head away

it rests
upon the ground

pretends to be a cobweb
stretched from hedge to hedge

and only in the very act
of my turning back

does it leap
into the sky

as if
"nothing"
had happened

an owl gives a hoot
but no one is listening

not even the moon
asleep on a hill

a mile or so
away

the constellation clasped
upon the night

beautiful as a brooch
made out of time

the squeak squeak
of a bicycle wheel

that needs an oiling

as I cycle slowly slowly
around the bend

the tick tick of the spokes
and. . .

. . .out of sight.

*


I wrote it walking around the Taj Mahal on a cold foggy morning with a shy Taj Mahal dressed in a respectable fog and nowhere to be seen...when this poem popped into being.

In India thinking of Ireland. I remember being on a beach in Lampadusa with the sun hitting a hundred and writing about furze ablaze with yellow on the Curragh of Kildare.

Shyam( the King of Kindness )was like a constellation stretching himself from the here to the there in his efforts to look after us in a regal fashion.

His good nature and kindness reminded me of this memory when I was very happy and living in this tiny moment.

He was everywhere and even when he wasn't there...he was there. Our lucky Shyam...bad pun on his name!