(After Georgia O’Keeffe’s ‘Yellow Hickory Leaves with Daisy’, shown above)

Late autumn born Into a universe of falling, Beginning with stars Falling away from each Other with their cargoes, And ending with this

Clutch of fall leaves. Which one of this are you, And which one am I? Half bitten away by time, We hold the color of amber Celebrants of what was once

Green, and will be so again. The earth in response to My questions (What is spirit Made of? What is the end Of all things?), answers with Simple beauty: a daisy with sun Flowering at its navel, you With distant eyes of smoky jade.

(for T)

From trackless paths of the seas I have come searching For the comet that must have Fallen to ground Somewhere on this shore.

Skin flecked with salt, muscles Covered with barnacles I have seen kings being burnt On their way to warrior heaven Above me. Secrets of the reefs, Sunk ships have settled In the creases of my skin.

Now I am neither man nor matter, I have become a seeker Wandering for signs, signals, Rumors, news, markers. I call her Nayantara As the ancients still remember her: Woman with a body of shells, Whose flower births aromas.

The starry eyed one, Who set my life adrift On ships of spinning clocks! Friend, have you heard, Even second hand or third, News of that corolla of light?

Notes:

After watching a corny movie Don Juan De Marco again (Why do I watch it if it is corny? Why do people drink? Why do people smoke?), for the fourth or fifth time, some words arose in memory. Words attached to my history, to past loves, and history yet to be born, loves yet to be celebrated, yet lived through. This woman, that these words blossom around (who as Nikos points outs in his brilliant ‘The Last Temptation of Christ’ is just another aspect of the Universal Woman) then requires to be named, albeit temporarily. And tonight I call her ‘Nayantara’, very literally ‘Eyestar’. And for her, I hang this poem in this moonlight sky, so she that may find it, a crude flag, and know I exist.

Pared from clouds, These pieces of paper I arrange and rearrange. What is this that has happened?

With dream ropes, Tied to the mast of night, I haul in pieces of moon. What is this that has happened?

One time when I glimpsed You beyond a curtain Of falling water It seemed as if I saw Lightning glitter. Since then you rain In my dreams, since then You talk much Laughing.

Listen: from him, who doesn’t Know you, ask and find Out what your name is? What is this that has happened to me?

See with skin Naked like the rosy Haze at daybreak Don’t walk around These hills like This. Don’t bathe in The salty seas like This.

Moonlight spreads over The waking hours of the day. And on the tender skin Of fruit, I keep carving Your name. What has happened to me?

(A song loosely translated from Hindi)