Asian

As I Walk By

A premonition of fall already
informs this hot summer's day
although the small, small leaves
of the rows of tall,
old Chinese elms
lining Sixth Avenue
near my home,
have yet to commence their dance
which they do,
when they do it,
with such an old-fashioned
sedateness and grace,
that is so pleasing to watch
when the wind comes to woo.

Then the leaves will shed hoards
Of shadows onto the ground,
creating a growing umbrage
deep as the sea
in order to capture me
as I walk by.

The Fall Rain

Trees in our neighbourhood shiver in cold, grey rain,
last remaining foliage in a state of deshabille for late fall.

Streetwalkers working their beat on nearby Hastings and Victoria
are rain-soaked, shivering in flimsy, revealing dresses.

Each year I wonder, will they all survive the oncoming winter?

all inclusive

i'd like to take the package
a job
pay for my work
hired not fired
because i'm brown
stability
to keep my kids warm
let them run while their air
is still pure
before they learn the anger
the rejection, the betrayal
holiday pay
kindness
to dance with my girls
on a hot evening
in a hot place where
beaches smile

ganesh

if a rock fell on me
i wouldn't be too surprised

i have found elephant
footprints on my journeys
the quiet kafuffle of a cosmic joke
played at my expense

i have heard
the crunching and chewing
of cashew nuts
i have been your night's entertainment

you are right
i deserve it
never take pictures
of elephants in india

Can I live this love, matching you to poetry
in Urdu, Gurmukhi and Hindi,
and have as reply only your few unlettered
lines telling me that our children are well,
relating my mother's love and brother's wife's whine?
I wait. No letters. Not even paper-love rewards.
Chained to pulling green lumber all night, dragged
through black sleepless nights, thoughts of
your long green eyes, your face, blaze my mind.
My children's voices cry/laugh through my dreams.
Enfeebled by endless greenchain shifts, I fear
a war, the years.
No passports yet? Fathom my heart's great dukh. I watch.
Droves of birds fly away together, another winter.
Come before the war, come through Hong Kong and Yokohama.
Please let me know as soon as you can.
And I will send money to Moga
to bring you, the children, across
the kala pani to Victoria.
Come soon. Before the war.
I'll tell you what you will need to bring:
sweaters for the children, books,
seeds, are hard to get. Bring yourself. Yourself,
and surma for your beautiful green eyes.
I am your beloved Inderpal Singh,
who would spread flower petals for you,
and fly to you on feathers, if I
could.

I have not met a man
so strong as the snake
who grabbed my ankles
and wrestled me to the ground.

No, not even you, Jacob.

If in that night,
I had a branch,
I would have chased it off.

But the enormity of it,
the promise of its poison!

At long last,
the liberating of my thighs
to the cry of birth.

Forgive me, dear Jacob, forgive me

but I too have wrestled,
with this monster
called Love.

A Season of Mercy
A season of mercy
has been granted us,
this long time now -
history
by crucifixion
has always demanded patience.

House after house
has been built on the shore,
the same fishermen fishing seas
for the One man who spoke to them
from the water.

Some are tired of waiting;
some have lain down to die,

but still others persist
with dew in their eyes
so that even I must turn
this time now
to face Him at last
mercy's desire
granted.

Salt
Suddenly salt has lost its savour.

Love and all that it meant
is now a fragment of a bowl
no longer capable of holding water
but of only the caked white reflection -

a self, distorted and wan

weary with lines of knowing,
scarred with wounds that have truly savoured,
and known no other cleansing.