Peaceful Passage (2021)
There stands the
upright bamboo;
unwavering, waving
it's grassy leaves.
A firm friend of winter,
the last one standing.
Through it's shoots
peeps the
matriarchal moon.
her gentle gaze,
her generous light.
Sure as the
night and tides
she sweeps,
so too our fateful passing; the
shedding
of our leaves from
enduring branches.
Take peaceful passage,
adrift the breeze
that lifts you from
these earthly roots to
those celestial
skies.
Goonight,
bamboo.
Goonight,
moon.
The River (2021)
Let us meet
at the river
bend,
where the fingerly reeds
comb the current.
She nestles in the
crook of my 'bow,
like the banked moorhens,
to baptise her palms.
Berry-blackened fingers
stroke the waters edge
where thirsty willows root.
Frogs' legs pass by
lily pads anchored deep.
As she glissades so too
the shape-shifting clouds s ca tt e r,
rippling across the skies;
drifting like unmade beds
above a silt mattress.
Be home here,
in my liquid limbs
and ever-changing waters.
Carry me within
the rivulets the course you.
I will be here,
waiting to meet you
at the river
bend.
RAINSTORM (2020)
The rain
weaves the skies;
each drop
stitch-ing
the clouds
to the earth.
A silken thread
to tie down
the Heavens,
as if it were
a kite.
The tapestry unfolds
a storm
embroidered with
electricity.
Night looms and
one can hear the
seamstress at work,
showering
unto the sparkling earth.
LOTUS (2018)
A closed lotus
seated in the skies, dusted
Earth underfoot,
a root,
afloat.
An open lotus,
a horizon setting,
a perpetual turning.
I will rise to
Meru’s
morning.
I CAN SEE THE SPACE (2014)
Horizon guts the Sea's berth
and back
to sit on wooden slats: A look out.
A place for Now.
The metronome seasons
chime with the lapping tide.
The fours and fives form a rhythm - a
sound structure - as if
a foundation is laid and waiting,
like a pencil that never left the page.
I've traced these lines,
these sights and steps, followed others close
through vacant lens.
And that wide snapping eye watches
a rise of roofs and roads, which
undulate in an arched exhalation.
I can see the
site.
Each frame is spliced and fused, as if a reel of
film that plays out
a daily scene,
a scene of stillness,
instilled in us.
I can see the
space
NO MOON DAY (2014)
No Moon Day
Today the new moon
is no moon,
no crescent smiling
no tides turning:
how do you bow to the sky?
Everyone is offering
with palms up-facing;
plaited palm leaves
quartered petals
a pinch of rice.
Towns turn to the temple
bird houses bursting
with prayer
and
thanks.
There sit the seeds -
embedded in the third eye,
the throat -
chakras like petals unfurling
opening
and language tumbling
free.
Still she floats in waters deep,
backs bent
willow seeking,
and only mountains
erupting
tilt and, in glassy truth,
bow to the moon.
INDIA LIKES MY NAME (2013)
Holly
Holy
Holi Festival
Holy Cow
Holiday
Holy Spirit
THE TEMPLE GUARDIAN (2013)
a proud lingam thrusts
it’s way through the earth and
ever up,
stagnant waters circling
the standing stone
the cut-away core
there the bending backed
guardian wades,
his spine a feather
arching,
in knee-high holy water
a silver palm offering
receives a shower sprayed
blessing,
he tends to the garden;
petals plucked and placed
at the base
so
the living withers
and the water waits
and the stone stands.
HOLY COW! (2013)
The slow
backward stinging
third eye,
recessed and fatty,
plod slurps the generic
path. Regurgitating
wordy mouthfuls and
spitting irony.
The wandering beast
paroles the beach,
Her soil sand is home to hooves.
Horn charged she
wrestles ‘gainst gated thought.
A push, heave and heavy,
her symbol pressing.
She seizes
the fly away naan!
To elegantly retreat.
Between us
the seas widen, with
waters brittle and fallen.
Distance swelling
and feeling forgotten.
Each an island.
Heads down-turned to every earth,
each pretending, that
ten toes are not counted.
THE NIGHT GANGES (2013)
For the souls of yesterday,
and the souls of tomorrow.
Time is shorn
from the heads of the earthbound.
Years in clumps at their feet,
swaddled white like newborns.
The river cannot run from the eyes
downstream, as the spirits seek.
Flashlights steal sight, the
way of the wanderers.
Red wrapped, gold glittering
processions up shoulder-high
through streets
shouts rise.
Laid bathed and oiled,
Shiva licks the body clean
cleanse
sandalwood fire flicks,
curls
cremates.
What remains
passes on
passes down
Ganga’s own. Flowing
East and ever.
RIVER SETI (2013)
The Weaver’s been busy, sketching
the skies, a pastel gauze trips over
to drowse out the hillside,
and us,
we dream down the riverbed.
As the tide takes us the vulture turns
his hunch, a conch calling
the horn blower’s brigade.
Silver trees twist, uprooted and
searching. Arms out reach
for passing waters, catching khata -
silken shreds, hang down dusty.
Bamboo hands shoot
spreading fingers
and tongue-ember fire.
From the Mountains’s hip juts
island grey, crumbling
at the Water’s edge.
Time lies in layered
clay cast husks.
The jade river runs
Mountains rise from swollen ink-pools into
snow frothed caps,
sinking away into the swell.
Appearing and disappearing,
above and below.
UP DOWN ROUND (2013)
Up down round
Up down round
Dust rust local bus, sweep
swerving, Tarmac-smacking
marigolds flying.
Sun lug beat.
Up down round
Up down round
Red root shrine;
Bamboo offering.
CLOUD WEAVER (2013)
The tailor weaves a mountain cap,
to quiet the ears of silent scape.
Pierce the silk shawl veil,
the needle of the compass North,
through the mist we wind.
The haze dissolves beneath,
as if it were a dream.
BOUDHA (2013)
We join the surging current of people circumbulating the stupa clockwise.
Butter lamps are lit with woollen spun wicks,
Buddha beads, held in the left hand, count paces and prayers,
Mantras are muttered under breath.
Prayer wheels encircling the stupa spin wildly.
And we spin in circles;
We become the mandala.
At the centre of the universe,
At the centre of ourselves.