Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
......
The life that I have
Is all that I have
And the life that I have
Is yours
The love that I have
Of the life that I have
Is yours and yours and yours.
A sleep I shall have
......
I.
I dream of you walking at night along the streams
of the country of my birth, warm blooms and the nightsongs
of birds opening around you as you walk.
You are holding in your body the dark seed of my sleep.
II.
This comes after silence. Was it something I said
......
O SAY what is that thing call’d Light,
Which I must ne’er enjoy;
What are the blessings of the sight,
O tell your poor blind boy!
You talk of wondrous things you see,
You say the sun shines bright;
I feel him warm, but how can he
Or make it day or night?
......
O you shaggy-headed banyan tree standing on the bank of the pond,
have you forgotten the little chile, like the birds that have
nested in your branches and left you?
Do you not remember how he sat at the window and wondered at
the tangle of your roots and plunged underground?
The women would come to fill their jars in the pond, and your
huge black shadow would wriggle on the water like sleep struggling
to wake up.
Sunlight danced on the ripples like restless tiny shuttles
weaving golden tapestry.
......
Father, please watch over me
When I sleep at night
Because I have
A hard time falling asleep
Every single night
I used to go to bed
Late every night
Also I wasn't getting enough
Sleep, my Father
Also I was waking up
......
My gaze is turned above.
Trees fall down and streets elope and face follows a frown,
Of straight along and circly roads won't further mark my path,
So step for step just past the grass and you there somewhere dad
But the light that fills my eyes is still so rare and so delight,
Why as I reach the follow rise and walk to watch her dream,
The slide gathers like a woven thread just knitted by the beam
......
MULBERRY TREES AND BUTTERFLIES
Don’t go back to heavy sleep
dwell in wakefulness
of I AM THAT I AM
here mulberries and butterflies
beckon across filtered fences
which you can comely climb
for a bountiful bestowing
pick, a Sunday spongy
......
Soon dawn at plum morn
though pearly moon still keeps watch,
for the golden end.
Afternoon's recalled in dreams
adorned in wild color schemes.
Memory Lane sleeps
as orange noon is coming,
after dusk scarlet.
Lemon-lime hours revisit
......
Hues of pink and purple tuck the day,
Now fading into gray—
A fragile husk, an empty shell,
Now quiet in the dusk.
Soft, wispy clouds of fluff drift low and slow,
Their curves kissed by a golden glow.
They blush and hush, then pale with grace,
As dusk begins to take their place.
They cradle your silent ache,
The weight you never dared to wake.
......