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Saturday 3 December 2011

Ode to Waiting

I want to know its colours,
the play of shade,
the ambience of waiting
and keeping someone waiting,
i want to knows if it has form,
whether line and space
define or obscure,
i want to know its garments,
and if they are stitched
with moon-thread,
embroidered with ripple and
washed with wind,
i want to know
if these hours of sleeplessness
give birth to sigh or smile or both
and if other unknown things
are yielded,
i want to know,
girl at the other end of a tenuous
and invisible line,
whether these words
scented with mystery and knowing
arrive as garland
or as intoxicant
or as poison,
and if
when you breathe them,
you fly or collapse.


[From the collection 'The Underside of Silence', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2008]

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