Anthology of Promises

Reduced to an anthology
In the dusty shelves
Of my inherited life, are
Some houses without doors, some
Chaotic prayers and some
Broken Promises made
On the sea shore.

If the voice
Did not reach you, does it
Mean I never promised anything?
With the split of memory, and the
Fire on the grass-gone-dry, I
Forgot the time, but my words,
Carried forward in the wind
Had your name.

Buried in the snow now, the
Spring buds will remind me
Of the autumn and the
Life in the Sun. Wont you
Then sing another daffodil song
For me, to
Make a new promise
In the still wind of the remnants
Of the cold days?

And the promise will
Sleep with a banyan leaf bookmark
While the dust will dull my
Memory. The hope of the leaf
To ride to another page
Will inspire it to
Wait for
Another winter, another
Spring.


Some promises:

Unsung to time, living
The life of the pressed grapes, growing
Beautiful all
Along, but dying
In your death… in its
Last breath, it remembers
The day it was picked from
The vine, when the river flowed
Backwards to the land where
Youth sang and Old age
Danced.