Poem 1:
KEEPER OF THE SEA
 
Loneliness will show you infinity¹.
  
Who can speak of one
who was destined to watch over the sea
for a lifetime?
The sea moving beneath his eyelids,
the salty wind,
an endless desert of water.
 
On the shore I have seen the sun
shuffling across the white sands
without shoe or shade.
In the dark, in the sea,
while men and marine creatures were sleeping
I have seen the earth rising from slumber
to quarrel with the stars.
 
‘Why guard the sea which cannot be stolen away?’
the guardian angel scoffs.
 
Loneliness, more than a man can bear,
envelops me today—
of family,
of friendship,
of love.
Nothing to read save the progress of the waves —
the oldest script on earth.
 
Loneliness will show you infinity.
It will make you hear
the whimper of death in silence.
The smell of the dead man is the smell of the sea.
In his dreams I see flowers of sand
that crumble at a touch.
 
Was it you who captained
that wrecked wooden ship,
ancient as the world,
marooned on a subcontinent
surrounded by three oceans?
What desire hardened into pain
in the heart of a star
only to burst out in a thousand shards of fire?
Whose tears were scorched
when the wrath of the summer sun
raised citadels of clear light
in every green sprout?
Which flock of flying wings
coming home to roost
cut the throat of the tired day
and offered it to the night?
Is there any warrior
who is not in love with the sea?
Is there any weapon
that does not dissolve in her tears?
 
The night and I have witnessed
the widowed moon sheltering little hills
with her luminous cloak,
we’ve seen from the mountains
the sea emerge in a spray of silver wings,
heard the howl of wind-driven water.
 
From the origin of language
until their lives shriveled away,
my ancestors,
keepers of the sea,
stood here between the stars and the deep —
in rain, in wind, in salt.
 
Now, it is my watch:
a conch in one hand, fire in the other,
heedless of day and night.
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¹ A friend said in a casual conversation.
 
 
Poem 2:
DANCER OF BABYLON

The emperor of Babylon
played on the fingers of the slave river:
‘Dance for me now!’
 
Stretching back her right leg from the deep sea
to wear the jangling anklet
 
arranging her scattered hair in the wind
which spread across the great mountains
 
she danced
raising herself erect
in the heart of Babylon.
 
Today, I saw that very dance
which no historian has ever recorded,
through the gift of a mirror from that city.
 
I had already seen slaves dancing,
but this is the first time I have seen
an enormous slave river
rise up to dance.
 
Poem 3:
DEEP NAKED
 
It is a thousand years
since we parted.
 
The photographs of our nakedness
I took long back
pop up from my leather box today.
 
You’ve seen the salty breeze wipe away
my tears many times
as I sit on the sand-beds crying.
 
We lie parallel to the sea.
The pole star floats in our eyes
and now I see the frozen naked sky
lying deep in the pictures I took then.
 
It is only a thousand years
until we meet.
 
Sitting on the bank of this milky way
I can see far down to the earth,
as evening gently walks
by the long stretched blazing beach
showing pink cheeks and glazed skin.
 
Denouncing our bodies
we can stride naked again for a light year
through the sky’s valleys
where no one could ever capture an image of us
sleeping next to god
dreaming of butterflies and the earth’s smile.
 
 
Poem 4:
THE VALLEY OF BUDDHA
 
In which language should I say
to these fine golden hairs
fallen last night from you
onto my white bed sheet
that there are many things at home
which were brought by my grandmother
when she exiled from Rangoon?
 
 
Poem 5:
THE WAY SPRING COMES
 
From my teacup
along with a gold transparent warmth
a delicate creeper
blooms slowly
towards my lips
and spreads across my whole body
 
I sit on an iron garden chair
one lazy Sunday evening
reading a letter which arrived late,
my feet in wet mud.
 
Now I see that the parrot
that flew through this way
professed
the arrival of spring,
squawking that I would soon
transform into
a garden of creepers.
 
With the diminishing sun
a golden sweetness
dips into my soul.
 
 
Poem 6:
TOWER OF LIGHT
 
Alighting from a train in the early morning
I reached your multi-storeyed flat.
You smiled at the gate watchman
as you took me in
and gave me coffee.
From the sixty-fourth level
you showed me the sea
where Arabs once sailed,
an old tile factory,
an abandoned cemetery,
green coconut treetops.
 
When the sun retired
darkness melted with moonlight
to fill my cup.
It overflowed.
 
Smiling, you danced.
I felt a blazing anklet, a rhythm
from the lotus that bloomed on my head.
I saw a giant tower of light
and the train in which I came
winding slowly up to the sixty-fourth level.
There, the sea, clay, souls of the dead—all took life
from your footsteps.
 
The next morning
as I boarded the train back to my village,
packing the night and the moon in my bag,
I saw a tired Spring
sleeping on a lotus
after her vigorous dance in the dark.