Moving

The soul clothed in the folds of skin and flesh

the flesh housed in concrete walls and cells;
the soul switches its costumes and that’s death
what’s it when flesh changes housings, travels?

 

The shapes of shadows morph, the leaves, the street

names change to strange foreign tongues, can life then
be same in differently fashioned concrete?
where absent fig tree shade shocks the garden;

 

the same silver but different the anklets

on the feet of passing women, the wells
few and far between, even the planet
changes her outfit, different here her veils.

 

You carry too much, you can’t take enough

this must be thrown off, it's outlived its use
no place perhaps to string mango leaves up
different the rules there, different charms, taboos;

 

get over the longings for a certain

size of courtyard, a blooming branch, a view
from a fixed window, casual, sudden
prints of careless altaa’d feet which stepped few

 

minutes too soon before the red had dried.

It’s not written - the altaa and anklets,
familiar jingling metals inside and outside;
workday sounds. That’s not for you, so forget

 

being rooted in the same courtyard and walls;

for rice paste painted wavy ears of  grain.
The body’s housing changes faster than the soul’s
the path stumbles on the rocky terrain.