and it is golden
with green grass
and birds chirping
and there are trees
and rivers with fish
and beautiful mountains
and valleys
and forests with
animals in them
in fact it looks
a lot like Kumily
where I live
and the people
there are the same too
only they float like angels
singing songs
and here we talk
we smile
and the children
flit about like butterflies
all the while.
the tears of all of us
and the ones who are gone
and in this much sorrow
we drown
no one has a chance
the greedy arms
of grief
snatch us under
and serve us to
its master
death.
to drink
the waters
of the oceans
to swallow the sky
to become the wind
it is not easy
to sleep on the moon
to talk to the stars
to fly over the rivers
to be free
it is not easy
to turn into
a blue whale swimming
an elephant running
an eagle circling
up high
a black stallion
thundering across
a pasture
it is not easy
to embrace the world
like a lover
to be the dew
in the morning
to sing all the time
to give yourself
freely to others
it is not
easy to be good.
are ghosts
in our lives
their presences
like apparitions
that come and go
this is hardly a real world
this can’t be taken seriously
we can’t be superheroes
and save everyone
and this cracks us
it unhinges our mind
and scatters our emotions
like dust
in a way
we are told we are nothing
and sadness once again
overwhelms us
we cry rivers
and drown in our own sorrow
that is how tragic
our destiny is
doomed to die
in our own hearts
the lights going
out of us
in our own eyes
we then live
like zombies
on this Earth.
I can hear music
in the wind’s wail
it is the song
of the dead
and it is so beautiful
they are at
such peace
I feel
I have transcended
this world
paradise lay
at my feet
gardens of roses
I dwell in
this tenderness
that life is
doves in my hands
I release
like myself
flying over the orchards
and rivers
colourful like a rainbow
then the nightingale sings
the stars are diamonds
my footprints like magic
shine in the sky
and the universe dances
its body so excited
shaking its rhythms out
and entertained beyond
my life I sing.
flowering yellow in the forest
a puff of feather floats across
me on the terrace rising steadily
into the trees silence is golden sun
shining so bright the green canopy glows
and up above there is bright light in the blue sky
there are clouds so wildly shaped in wonder you look
with awe up above you where freedom flows freely like air
and the scene is so pure it is like the burning flame of childhood
it is memory imagine friend imagine yourself in a train and the vast
countryside outside imagine the endless red earth the lands of brightness
and the rivers flowing white and blue and green and muddy brown and the sun blasted
fields alongside the mountains flying the sand coloured the black the big the grey the green
imagine the people in their different clothes who didn’t see you and who saw you and who you saw
and who you didn’t see the animals the dogs the cats the cows the bullocks in the water and the
breezes blowing and the women bending down and working and your heart bursting with joy you so
happy with life so golden and silver and sparkling you shout with heart in your human happiness in
your celebration like a bird singing and a woman in the field bursting into laughter begins to run.
Dominic Alapat 