Friend, today is a sealed box. The instructions
are on the packaging. There is even a dotted line
telling you where to cut-
You can do it alone,
but sometimes, even solitude wants witness.
The page of this morning has just been opened
by the sun peeping through vacant rooms
of sleep, where the knowledge of what is to come,
is yet to reach. Outside on the moringa tree,
unconcerned by the weather forecast
that has prophesied water to slake our thirst
for green, a kamlipoochi is eating a leaf.
Its evolution into wing
unspools in a fury of bites. Light strings through
the branches, dims into sight, and for a moment
Vetaal laughs, as the dried drumsticks charred
with grandmother’s tales rattle in the wind.
The rain doesn’t bother the thousands clustered
where bark meets leaf, dressed in a fungal haze,
white with life. Tiny eyes blinking in the wind
don’t care about who’s watching – their practised
haste is not by design but necessity. And so it is
that the priest must rush to the temple
and the madman to the pith of his visions.
At the end of the path when we meet in the forest
again, walk ahead of me so I might find
the clearing, where we do not need to remember
names, and night is a quiet person watching you
from the shadows. Remember to whisper softly
in my ear that flight is not voluntary. If I forget,
help me with the instructions the way green
hands tend to plants, with music
and tomorrow in their wild eyes.
DoubleSpeak 