PARTITION


In that year
they left the old house
taking the odour of clothes
and souls.

We replaced the trees and crows,
and planted fresh birth sounds
and sleep sounds.
We changed nameplates.
We changed the street.

Even now when the pot boils
on the old stove
making tinny sounds,
it is the noise of the morning women
restless, and the men demanding bread.

There is cement on sandstone,
concrete on the ground
where the sleeping desert
once swam.

But from the cracks in the wall
the house speaks.
There is breath
coming from the black loam
around the rose bush.

The ants speak.
The wind that slaps the west wall
speaks.

I can smell the master's dream
in his old white vest,
soiled and tattered,
holding the bricks of the wall.

Shadows of bones
walk in the night.
The house bares its soul
with each monsoon drop
on the windowsill.



NEIGHBOURHOOD


Look out the house's many windows
and see crows swinging on wires,
soldiers commanding zones of our life.

In this neighbourhood the streets run backwards,
questioning themselves. Rumours pass between walls.
Whispers of longing connect men and women.

Every house along the lane has eyes
that speak, doors of red paper,
sunlit facades hungry for innuendoes.

In the window of one house a woman stands,
her back to the road.  Lamplight burns on her body.
Her room smells of cooking and soap.

Strangers pass through the streets.
They hear music from balconies,
and the strange, magnetic laughter of dogs.

At sunset invisible mosques call to prayer.
Living rooms ignite in a blue fluorescence.
Women light incense
as birds announce the day's passing.




HILL STATION


Silence.
Only the murmur of breath
from the valley.
Up here, the unworried air

rests among pines,
a mix of water and dense
greenness of leaves.  A mist
waits, cooling sun's light.

The road which brought us here
moves along mute edges
of hills, a winding line
from lives left behind.

It pauses at the tea shop,
then follows visiting clouds
to the open window of sky.

The cottage welcomes
summer visitors
with a damp handshake.

Creatures of fern and moss,
residents of the house,
shift uneasily.

The house has no mirrors.
We see strange faces in the sound
of footsteps
and sense a hush,

the noiseless rush of water
through leaves moulding.
Amid the whisper of trees,

a new, unfamiliar calm.





LIFE OF THE IMAGINATION


So much is left to the imagination,
Dreams and their coming true,
The love once sought acquired,
Places visited that really do not exist.

It is tiring and full of ennui
For the body to feel no pain.
Only the mind reacts, argues,
Laughs and loves. The body merely

Draws the map of the intellect's
Fancy wanderings.  The latitude and
Longitude of an event on the
Horizon of possibility.  Cry,

The tears are scratch marks;
Laugh, the sound is echo to a profile,
Seen like some mist solidified into
A talking person. Only when love

Intervenes, much as the inevitable
Wall of all lives, do the bounds appear.
The circular logic of fancy reveals
The inner limit of body and soul.






ROSES AND CARNATIONS


At a flower show
roses and carnations
sway in a gentle breeze.

Judges move among the plants,
placing tags on the winners,
smelling a distant paradise.

Beyond the green spread of the park
in the quiet of a morgue
a man labels the day's dead.



PHOTOGRAPHS IN EVENING PAPERS


Bemused,
rescued from torment,
they lie staring at us
with half-open eyes.

We talk of the dead
only as shapes and numbers,
the arithmetic of rectangles
in a cemetery.

Sitting inside walls
our house wears the city's dread,
colour of faces changed
from counting and recollection.

Nervously we tread
from room to room,
avoiding each other's touch,
stepping around tables and chairs

as if each wooden thing,
like numbers and shapes,
might suddenly quiver
and begin to speak.





THE STILL LIFE OF APPLES


Resting
as if the whole world had stopped,
a moment's mute eternity.

Upon a scarlet skin
the window's radiance
in a miniature convex glow.

Epicenter of space.
The locus of chairs and doors.
A table's distortion
falls toward the fruit.

Two still apples
quivering and vital
in shifting light.





WINTER VISIT


On winter nights the house reveals itself again.
Each wall strums bygone sounds
and the trees begin to sing.

Shadows live again, following remnants of breath
from room to anteroom.

Here father sat and read himself to sleep,
the voice of his slumber kept us warm.
Here his wife-mother created love
from pots sputtering wisdom
of ancestors peering from walls.

On winter nights smoke seeps from halls,
the same grey ghost spiralling
from the incense burner.

Windows illuminate each soul
that peered into night but saw itself
one with the mortar and wood, one with the wind
blowing through the house's eyes.

On the balcony we touched sunlight.

In this room lips wept prayers,
for refuge, for life,
whispers awakened
with each season's visit.



SANDLINE


Concrete tires of itself,
crumbling to desert
where the city ends.

At midday
the ochre sea
stretched to distant
hills exhales
end of winter.

A line of camels
fades behind the sandstone temple,
carrying the day's
dilemmas.

Figures riding
gaze at us, then amble
into a mirage,
each footprint marking
a wasted month.

Near the road a lizard's
spring regalia
adorns a lone cactus,
a pilgrim praying
to desert gods.

Clumps of green
mark presence of water,
still ponds of hope
where wind ripples music.

Palm trees gesture in a breeze,
drink air that touches our face,
effacing this fear of going

nowhere.