Stateless

Stateless …thatched houses catch fire sparrow tires from romping in the coned-flower chestnut tree alights on the road tires crunch macadam sparrow perches on live telegraph wires winds sweep the plains topple high-tweeting power poles sparrow haunts deserted godowns caterpillar cranes tear down loading wharves sparrow unloads wings on marshalling yard trains shuttle screeching now forth now back sparrow glides then tumbles in air-pockets temperature plummets snow flakes magpie in the châtaignier shrieks disgust to the skies melting snow runs down eaves air sizzles with imminent thunder Zhen of a sudden clapclaps righteous terror The Eldest Son of High Heaven has high business to supervise tapeworms bore deeper into the ground the cicada scarcely calls to mate wet hungry ruffled sparrow has no chestnut tree to go back to now home to transiting seagulls tries to alight on spring-green spare Pawlonia chockfull of crows averts the mulberry tree à la feuille de platane fishing gear lie splayed against the trunk the dense dripping prickly hibiscus hedge affixes house-full sparrow perches on the terrace rose pot the neighbour’s Siamese cat’s ears perk up sparrow rolls its eyes April 24, 1997 From the privately-pub. coll. (rev. 2016): longhand notes (a binding of poems), Paris: 115p. © T. Wignesan – Paris, 2016

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