Dreams

It is dreamers who change reality

The one who imagined landing

On the moon took the first steps

For others to make the giant leap

Do not stop with prayers, for god

Helps those who help themselves

To show the way to help others --

The man or woman who dreamt

Of what lay beyond the horizon

Must have made the first catamaran

Setting off Man on his endless journey

That travels both ways and finds gold

On distant planets and coaxes

Clouds to shed gold on fallow land ---

Dreams have a way of coming true

So dream till you become the dream.

Trumpeting spring

The pink trumpet trees on either side

Of the road mitigate your winter

Of denuded head and heavy breath 

The eyes mist over at the rare blossoms

Heralding spring in soft tones over

The discordant notes of the traffic

The eyes that have seen will carry

The flowers home and place them

In vases that know only artificial flowers

Neither fragrant nor wilting

But offering some quiet to the city-stressed

The neighbourhood konrai is in bloom too

Blazing with its yellow fire next to

The palash yet to light its orange flames

The grandfather points out the new season

To the little one tracking the fleet-footed cat

Time seems to be in no hurry, to light your fire.

April

It's April and the bodhi tree

Is in leaf, the old quietly leaving

For the new to arrive, with many

Branches still looking bare and even

The regular crows roosting there 

Keeping away in the mid-day sun;

You keep checking every day to see

The green leaves peeping out 

And growing larger and greener 

With the sheen more brilliant by the hour

The boys flying kites sometimes find 

Their first few flights of the season

Crashing here irretrievably as lost time ---

The drama of death and resurrection 

Enacted every year before your eyes

Is strangely reassuring as your steps falter

And you foresee your own time stopping.