This week’s poem inspired both by memories and recent events, by observations and imagination.

Summer

This, summer of your spring time,
world opening oyster-like.
You, a perfect grain of sand.

Paths display before you,
a peacock train of lines and twirls
aching for your tread.

Limitless sky blue and
bold above you,
days that promise not to end.

Afternoons on green slopes,
lolling with beers, squinting at sunlight
and all those brilliant girls.

So much laughter,
so many friends
and every option open.

Free from academic obligations,
now it is your choice,
your own voice.

Intoxicating afternoons
with only the itch
of grass to irritate

and all the world stretched
green and tempting
at your impatient feet.

Dhaka 2015

This week’s poem, a musing on how some things just don’t seem to get any easier, no matter how long you practice and do all the right things.

Some days

It just doesn’t get easier
despite early rising,
cold morning showers,
only two glasses and avoiding
late night hours.

Healthy breakfasts with fiber,
meals more often but lighter,
still temptations linger.
Repetition fatigue cracks
in tarnished willpower.

Despite mindful breathing,
recommended readings,
muscles still ache.
Morning’s duvet clings
to sleep-loaded limbs.

Slippery slopes still slipping,
convoluted negotiations
on why today’s (not) an exception.

Despite resolutions,
plans and phased-in solutions,
despite success on success,
still, some days are a test.

2015, Dhaka

This week’s poem, written on order, and dedicated to group of extension officers who are completing a season long training in Farmer’s Field Schools from our project.

Season long

Your hands now know to dig in soil,
assess damp roots, to plant, to toil.
Text book lay closed, soft gathering dust
while you net pests, examine rusts.

Raised poultry house, neat paddy fields,
reduced spray costs and raised milk yields,
strengthen the weak, empower the meek,
de-wormed and fed young goats grow sleek.

Contacts turned friends while skills were learned,
green mangoes swelled, mist melts, sun burns.
Long laughs you’ve laughed, hard days but fun,
now wipe a tear, the season’s done.

Dhaka 2015

This week’s poem about those odd moments when nature shakes you, you find yourself for a few moments in an elevated state and you realize you spend far too much time not fully awake.

Awake

I woke walking the park, just before dark.
Light was golden on treetops,
every leaf alive and clear,
uniquely formed in silhouette.
One moment I cannot forget.

On worn tiles radiating fading day
my steps echoed each heartbeat.
A single breath could fill my chest.
I felt communion with the breeze,
heard a bird scratch fallen leaves.

Later, in traffic, I feel asleep
wandering home through lifeless streets.

Dhaka 2015

Reflections

Nothing clear in drying pond,
light patterns shattered to chaos
by ebb and sway, long drowned debris
emerging as images soak silent away,
searching for inspiration.

Life settles wriggling in muddy sediment,
numb sentiment waiting for rain’s
rivulets to flow, sated seeds to burst.
Below dull surface seek to find
germs sprout, dreams grow.

Dhaka 2015