I heard your voice rise from the river
To the steamy air
Turn caw of jungle crow
Then breeze song
Cicada castanet
And hiss of forest burning red.
I heard you in the click of the tree frog,
Night heron squawk,
Snake rustle and whistle of the kheriya.
Then mother, came your terrible silence.

You arrived with the wind
Dark and terrible, bursting through trees,
Churning clouds till they exploded,
Rained grey and hard,
You spoke thunder, mother,
Electric eels through the watery air.

You hammered on my windows,
Dislodged tiles,
Shoved your great wet hands into this house
And touched my face, my hands, my chest,
Drummed where I lay in the darkness,
Circled me,
Breathed secrets I do not remember,
And then you left.

I opened the door,
Walked out into the night in search of you;
The river sang in the dark below,
The kheriya whistled
And the bent sal dropped two leaves,
A lone firefly blinked.

I’ll leave my windows open for your return,
My door open – so you may enter
Smelling of the river, of the sky, of the earth,
Of centuries of remembrance,
Of legends and lore,
Of peacefulness and love,
Of the burst of birth and death,
Storm mother, earth mother, come.

It rained all night and from the shores of sleep
I heard the river talking to the wind,
Hills sang ancient tree-songs
In the brown October of their growing years;

And then clearly, pure and simple
As the crystal of spring water
In a sun speckled bamboo grove,
I realised how blessed the rain is –

As it sanctifies the earth and all it touches,
As it licks the bodies of living beings,
As it bursts in thunder showers of grey on green,
As it feeds rivers and makes them sing;

Blessed is the rain that tenderly opens seeds,
That makes the wildness flower,
That celebrates the force of root and mud,
Blessed is the rain.

It rained all night and from the shores of morning
I greeted the day, full fleshed and glowing,
Not seeking meaning anymore
But being, being whole, being.

Lie still if you want to see the stars moving,
On your back, look into the dark blue
Stream of the sky, watch them swim,
The smaller in swarms, vast and mysterious,
The larger ones, tails swishing
Move through, downstream where the water
Is white as milk and the reeds throw shadows;

Lie still if you want to see the stars moving,
Birds gliding through leaf-shade,
Feathers flashing, calling with voices of yesterday
Drifting into tomorrow;
You and I here, now, watching the passing –
Through time, through seasons, through
Pathways of light and night
And the eternal quiver of the living;

Lie still if you want to see the stars moving,
Harden your muscles, let your bones settle into
Your flesh and fat like a fallen tree does with the earth,
Sinks in, everything moves but the tree;
And the wind walking through the woods steps over it
On its way to the far hills and the river;
Move – and the fish and birds and all the beings above
Will freeze as on a pithora on your wall
Waiting for your stillness to set them free again.

Girls are down at the river today,
Lean, brown, small hipped and smiling,
Floating on the water’s skin,
Plum breasts hard against their chests.

Tomorrow they’ll be women, fill themselves
With life each year
Until their homes are laughing with their young,
Dark cares in the air they breathe.

They’ll be themselves, for now,
Playing with moments like they do their hair,
Cascading on the river’s rim,
Twirling and combing, ribboning in red.

The river’s seen it all,
The young, the heavy wombed, the old –
And death come staggering down the drunken path
To watch a pyre flame its way to ash.