Life Sketches From Memory

Central Park in spring

Two boys playing soccer

exhilliarating voices kick in the air, the ball
moves smoothly, tireless and graceful

On a nearby bench, grandmother walks indigo ink

in long smooth lines across the paper

Out of all silhouettes

her eye purposefully catches

two. The art of choosing

is difficult 
only

for beginners

Evening

She walks her backyard garden

from behind the window

eyes move with effort
along the path

Each days ends, inevitably -
what a relief

to know this

it’s about time

to sleep

The Potomac River

disappears beneath 
blue horizons

Vacancy

Pair of brown shoes

hasn’t moved past the doorstep

for a year now. Near the glass door 
to the home-made
greenhouse, a bamboo chair

sits

stubbornly

An Interval

The kitten has fallen asleep in an armchair

out of half-opened window

dreams jump

like pond fish

Souvenirs

She’s been told

it doesn’t pay to travel

on one’s own, especially if one is

female; the world’s so

dangerous these days

packing

a slim suitcase
she turns

a deaf ear on the rubbish

soon          

new words will swirl around her

like spells, gestures will acquire

a novel meaning

each time
she learns to understand

anew

on the local market

remnants of glass cups

gain a second life 
in a pair

of hand-made earrings

from Abyssinia

she’ll wear them

at a dinner party
back in another time zone

Anticipation

his girlfriend’s on the way home

from a long trip

to her parents’

the young man

paints the walls magnoliac

the old room blooms

with a possible story

Words

Satsuma makes a name

for fruit, porcelain

and land topography

an avid student savours

dictionary entries

in a language class

In her hut in a village

on Satsuma Peninsula

an old woman eats tangerines

and drinks lukewarm tea
from a chipped cup

Motherhood

On the borderline

of night and day

words wake up a poet

with eyes closed, she gropes

for pen and paper

beside her bed