Yes it is true

a dream of those proportions

in the light of day may seem

impossible

yet as I hold your words in the palm of my hand

like a lotus, like a voltive

and blue birds crest the mango river in my mind

I feel I am already packing, soon to board

fly, or sail, through cloud and ether

shrugging off my old life and its eternal longing

for the warmth of your charcoal eyes

the pallet of your country, a dream yes

but who planted this dream within me? Since a child

a voice sung in my mind at night, the prayers

of your world, its color and sound, a heartbeat

I heard you walking in your flat sandals the color of

rain and earth, a firebush of movement

I feel your fingers adorning your wrists

closing material around your waist

like a hundred tales we’ve yet to tell

I am sitting next to you, cross-legged and perspiring

beneath an ancient Ashoka tree

listening to your childhood, and the reed warbler

thread her song between rainbow and monsoon

perhaps I will never disembark

fling off my old life and relinquish

the dust of the past, but then, who

is that girl who alights on hot tarmac?

One bag in hand, the other shading

her halcyon eyes in search

of your mahogany smile

perhaps I am just

one step away from climbing this rain forest tree

shared in places further than any journey

without sorrow, passing through

to your world, to your part of myself

waiting all this long time

to fuse into one.