WITNESSING A STORY

This is the small place where
all thinking stops. There are
merely amorphous impulses
that couldn't lead you anywhere.

The tissues do not follow
each other, just lie unmoved
in the skeletal dark, ready
to eat into the body.

And a little deeper down,
where a week ago happiness
stayed to greet you into
a zone of light and warmth,

winter is lisping its stories
that are nowhere centred
so they could hold the brain's
electricity, jubilant quiet.

Who asks for a fibrous stillness
in muscles and nerves, the brittle thinness          
of bones? Whose day brings back
only an emptiness, a folded sleep?

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A PICTURE OF LATE WINTER

Clouds move towards
the west in a flight
of rest and sleep.

Somewhere, a prayer
issues from a deserted voice.

All of those who have
forgotten their sleep

in course of centuries,
over vast continents
of dreams, are awake

to listen to the night sounds,
feel an old wound perspiring
in spite of blessings and winter.

Birds re-locate their homes
even as we spell their names.

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