Bulrushes by the lake
What are you?
Tiny bird on bulrush, where did you come from?
Sunrise, Sunset, all shimmering ripples now
that my feet send out swinging as I sit
on the dhobi-stone.
He washes clothes, he beats them
He stomps on them for hours
Varicose veins bulging
He, the lake, the clothes
and the expanse of sky.
He has forgotten how to speak
I try to teach him as he stomps.
How long? Where is your house? Does your leg ache?
He does not answer
But he is not there now –
gone to eat silently the food his wife has prepared
and black out in bed.
And I swing my legs in the water
seated on the dhobi-stone.
Little fish kiss my feet
A little hanky thrown in
yields a small fish-fortune.
But slowly, slowly the glorious Sunset
overwhelms me as I watch the grand show
so taken for granted because it is free,
because it is there.
As clouds turn light pink, dark pink, then roll and fade away,
rays disbanding in a fire play.
The trees, their branches reaching out to the waters
their leaves closing.
Birds that hurry home, the incessant chatter
as they settle down.
Now silence prevails
In a dark night.
The lights from the hangars reflect in the lake.
Far away, on the island, the old man and his son swing a lantern
and lo! it is the Smiling Moon herself!
I see all these things in my mind's eyes
as I stand where the lake was,
trying to reconcile the multi-storey apartments now
that have replaced the irreplaceable.
