Trees are words and light writes distances. - Adonis

A backward look comes to mind now: On Anna Salai, in the muggy heat of Madras,

Like Basho, waving farewell to a friend long after the beloved body disappeared into dusk.

This is what I have been doing every autumn For a decade as leaves cleave the cooling air.

There are distances of time woven into the creases Of my face. After years you ask me how I am:

Scan the trees' calligraphy when the winter comes to know how separation (or flight?) is written in light

Omens of clear dreams On the highway Orpheus descends To raise up Eurydice

Feasters of tainted dusk Waiting for a guide to The otherworld to appear

Tears about the tree line Falling towards sleep’s blanket Which obscures all city lights

The more I look at you The more I become an augur On the verge of a tongue's Desolation and a haunting.

Wonderful and haunting soundtrack of the movie "Before the Rain". Spend the 45 minutes required to listed to all of it, and then go find the movie and watch it.

Here are two pieces that I wrote to this music (from the archives circa 2004-05):

[A Mouthful of You]

City streets on the window, Are reflections of this day: Passing people, cabs and buses, Memories of urgent lovemaking Dissolving into shades of gray.

Ominous flash of sheet lighting, Twitching branches of birds and trees, Dull honking of vehicles and desire. The world, Darling, falls away when my mouth Fills up with pieces of you just as windows Are obliterated by the splashing rain.

[Right Now]

We are on the tricky slope Of talk, as you urge me to Say what I am feeling right Now.

Right now, my darling, We are making love, right

Now, we are feeding our hunger For certainty against dust, right

Now, my hands are pouring Camphor into your hair, right

Now, our bodies are conversing in A language they both know, right

Now, your right eyelash is fluttering against My right shoulder like a raven’s wing, right

Now, this black cab is driving Into London’s thin rain, right

Now eternity is flashing by me, and is Falling on your cheeks as tears, right Now.