This week’s poem, delayed by technical and other issues, is the result of residues from a very vivid dream.

Subconscious

I woke when the Eritreans arrived, two men and a woman, dusty but dignified,

begging shelter for their illegal countrymen.

Somehow they had heard of hidden rooms readied under our floor.

We were recently reunited, deep in conversation when they burst in,

I had to tear myself from your eyes to focus,

but shaking myself, rising, I felt my blood flood with adrenaline,

the softening effect of reunion seeping away,

time now for action

and then I awoke.

Dhaka 2015

This week’s poem, dedicated to my niece Kristina, newly arrived in this part of Asia.

Curried vegetables

Oh God, save me from curried vegetables.
Three times per day,
bitter, spiny and ash gourd, all yellow,
cabbage, potato and green papaya,
all grated, mixed and yellowed.

Soft boiled fish with staring eyes
and invisible, sharp bones,
mounds of boiled white rice,
fans overhead ensure only the first mouthful is hot
and lots of yellow dahl floating in watery soup.

Please, sir, may I have a pizza,
thin crust,
concentrated taste of tomato
with fresh green basil leaf
and just a little extra cheese.
Perhaps a fresh green salad –
drizzle of balsamic vinegar and olive oil.
Clean, fresh taste of simple ingredients

No need for condensed milk and sugary deserts,
boiled milky sweets, white and grainy with sugar,
cold milk-grey tea I do not require,
just a little glass of wine –
that will be fine.

Dhaka 2010

The terrible, bitter fight of those who will not let go of times that are ending, who will not accept that ordinary people in 2015 want to live in freedom from rules that are no longer relevant has been felt across the world this week and this month and this year.

Changing world

World is changing;

time of men’s hard rules is ending,

but take care, it still burns,

embers flare under ashes.

Those near are razed.

Feel their pain, offer shelter,

bind wounds, hearts,

heal their pain,

but know it is death fear’s fury,

a fading, angry time, smoother the

coals in love and water.

Dhaka 2015

.

You can say of the people of Dhaka,
As you say of Artic mosquitos;
If there were more of them,
They would have to be smaller.

Dhaka, 2015

This week’s poem, inspired by the relief of sensing and feeling the approach of autumn and cooler weather in Bangladesh.

Welcome back

First autumn wind found us
walking in a mango orchard hours from home.
Coolly determined after endless airless months,
she shook branches sending raptors and bats
reeling in darkening sky and let us know
she has arrived.

Jamalpur 2015

This week’s poem inspired by a recent visit to climate change affected areas of coastal Bangladesh, and particularly by the reality facing those families that have lost the land on which they depend for their livelihoods.

Adaptation

With three unmarried daughters and a son

dowry-promising soil washed away by the river –

I wonder what will become of the family by the river.

With three young daughters and a son,

floods having taken most of their property –

I see red eyed recognition of approaching poverty.

With three growing daughters and a son,

rice growing soil washed away by flood –

dry-eyed calculations of crops in square-meters of mud.

With three daughters and a birthright son,

family graves washed out to sea –

with that record gone, what place in history?

Barisal, Bangladesh 2015