A watchman’s whistle clocks four,
I wake up on the familiar cue;
Flickers of consciousness stream in:
A dark room, the whirr of the fan,
A soft pillow, a book underneath,
The comfort of knowing-I’m Me.
Like a monk, reveling in solitude,
I sit at my desk, my nest;
Wrapped in an old, powdery quilt.
Impatient thoughts spill over,
A page fills, and then another,
In the light of a yellow lamp.
An hour passes, the ink dries;
I sit on the window ledge,
Damp from last night’s rain.
The first light enters my room,
A Monet Sky, A Van Gogh sky,
Crimson arteries of the sun.
The petrichor seduces, I give in;
Gypsy toes wriggle into shoes,
Steps into the mellow morning.
A dewy blanket leaks sunshine,
Breeze, birds, feet on cobbled path:
The dawn chorus greets me.
Mossy tree trunks, bamboo thicket,
A lazy dog, birds on electric wires,
Ripples of a pebble on a pond,
A leafy canopy sheltering anthills;
I watch them as legs defy fatigue,
A meditative stride, a content mind.
I live from morning to morning,
Waking up to the delights of spring,
Where happiness is a bougainvillea.
The world awakes, solitude threatened;
And I walk on the road to home,
Coffee and conversations await me.
Dialect of Heart 