sienna 
bricks withering with the sorrowful wind.
Decaying corridors and alleys perishing
in distress. One
afternoon
blazing on broken light bulbs
burning three-piece sofas.
Charcoal imprints staining dusty carpets.
it is said that we will be okay.

          It is said that the children are crying.

Incandescent sailing silver-linings -
flowing gardens of smoky dreams. The 
archipelago
praises and pours droplets
into tin cups and plastic buckets.
Sienna
bricks grow out of rainy seeds.

          It is said that idleness is being present.

When you are early it is natural to hesitate.

I remember, looking, again, at the sky,

and finding only its death. The dead are a guide.

Because, the people, when I ask them, they stay silent.

They are silent by their own choosing, their fists boiling

with air. That is what they tell me, but I hesitate to listen.

Deep inside, not within me, not within you, but inside,

I think there is something. It is difficult to glimpse,

like a flower in a vase. It often pauses, watching

the surface’s empty fabric. But that fabric still holds

something. When I ask the people, they wonder what

I am boiling with. There is no road here, only a few

stragglers too proud to wander. They have agreed

that if the stone does not move, they will become the stone.

These are the curtains behind which stands nothing.

These are the lights burning my nothing. I am uselessly jittering

like sparkling water. Jumping from: to: nothing,

again, deep inside the people’s throats. Falling

from the ground due to rushing and twisting steps.

The same ones twisting into the sky’s death,

coloring the sky black, mute, not nothing,

but the presence of serenity. There is,

within its valley: peace, chaos, shadows.

But am I am still anxious, still self-stirred

with boiling. Still unaware, perhaps willingly,

of sprouting excessive wonder. Unaware

of the spilled ink spoiling my fabric.

The people, they shall not speak. Expecting them

to speak is death. One of them said: Please, what

are you looking for here? I do not have it. Said

there is a stone worth watching. After living a life,

you may write a ten-line poem, and then live. You,

What are you doing? Listen to me when I listen to me.

I am a guide. Do I not fathom

that the dead cannot speak? Do you –

do you not fathom what you have to do?

See – from: to: here: to wander, profusely

sitting, cutting my legs shall they run.

I want to walk and glance lamp posts. To listen

to the breaking of a biscuit within a cup of tea,

watching it, behind the glass, slowly descend

to the bottom, and stay there. To circle previous circles,

forgetting and remembering, observing the slow

melodies guiding, with soft hands, the eternal

search of finding forever. To look at the changing sky,

until it becomes a home, reading its warm pages,

cleaning its carpets, until there is more to see,

more to glimpse at the tearing seams.

Give me a chair. Let me sit.