A cat watches me,
from mud to sky.
And tree to tree.
Our minds on
a distant shore.
A moment of re-birth
and new shadow.
Passing through
both of us.

Each day, I ask questions
from a distance.
But only to myself.
A poet in exile,
searching for stones
of passion.
My goal lays beyond
the mountains.
Though I myself,
am unable to reach it.
And so, I stay free – to watch
the sky in a new country.
Sleeping between two myths.

A simple drawing, words by Buddha and a poem I wrote this afternoon.

Each step taken,
I glance with a sudden eye.
There is no doubting pause,
no verse or haiku – to comprehend
my loss and isolation.
Yet, to make it shine more bright
I bathe the ground
with flowering words.
To celebrate, my lasting life.

The shell I take now,
is the only one left.
Rows of pengkan tangerines,
guava and papaya
stretching to the horizon.
Tracked through history,
and charged by spring winds.
A summer self-dust and a bird,
once extinct – that now sings.

The magpie’s shriek and steal,
too many words from                                their cold hearts.
In places of gold they sit and caw
abandoned, stranded and exiled.
Yet, still preaching about allure
and all that glistens.

A poem I wrote after listening to some people talk about being alone at this time.

Deep inside something I did,
or didn’t do, an ill-wind
frames the world.
Pulled inside a cloud edge,
we turn the clocks back.
A secluded motorway,
a silent night train.
We are all in this alone.

Something startles                                  in the summer grass.
A girl with fireflies in her hair,
consoling the spirits of victims.
Another sky tempered, bought
by silver ingots from an empire.
But the mother tongue, drawn
out of brains and seed sprouts.
Flaunts the gods that pass
through time and space.
And again, the revolutionaries
tread on death – and so alive.

The mountains stand all around,
houses come along but don’t speak.
And the birds never stop singing.
Wandering and wandering, on this
small island – I see an ancient soul.
Quietly and gently embracing me,
until the last lingering leaf falls.

I gave a lecture today ‘Health Humanities and Nursing’.. in exile in Taiwan. Then I wrote this poem.

That’s how it starts,
waiting out the storm.
A whole year in an ant’s life.
Life gods, gone
deep in the woods.
No longer telling you
the whole dream.
Under closed circuit surveillance,
we try to make sense
of a rainy season.
Now’s not the time to panic,
love as you can.
Golden rules still count.

We all learn to bow and repent,
even though they donate little.
The sky, the earth – happiness
is just listening and seeing.
We walk and chat each day,
a childlike wisdom, grown strong.