Bamboos creak and shiver 
The air hot gooey molasses. 

A pendulous ceiling of cloud swings, 
Fat with thunder. 
Then inexorably, it rains. 

Our river creeps sluggishly round broad bends 
Through sweat soaked jungle 
That is the dwelling of ghosts, 

Running into the dreaming eyes of village elders 
In silence, heat 

Dredging the bones of history. 

Finally its muddy vein works at 
A swathe of festering mangrove, 
Before tussling the sea. 

Flies, cockroaches, 
Outrageous reeking flowers, 
Mist drawn over our faces 
Like ghosts in the grey daylight 

Our craft a skimming pebble 
On the roaring river, 
Moving downstream. Leaving 

For the child loud edges of the ocean 
For the tide crying wistfully at inevitable loss, 
For a shore clean scavenged by 
tentacles of sea. 
 

  
  © 2000