WHAT IF

As if an earthquake
Always happens elsewhere;
As if the pond here
Will forever be still
And as if
the lotuses with
their mouths open
will forever
gape at the skies

What if I wake up
To see the skies fall
What if I go back
To my mother-africa
Not your grandmother

What if the Continent of Darkness
Spreads between us

ARRIVAL
JAVA  HOUSE,  IOWA  CITY
Café  au  lait


Unleashed from the contours
of a smile
I felt the American Indian
feel me
with his brown native eyes,
reaching out from just above
the edges of the table
pushed against the farthest wall,
on which hung his portrait
with his arms as if
resting on the table

In Java House
amidst the buzz of
alien coffee percolators
and strange twangy English,
he and I
waited for the first move

he with his crown of feathers
I with the perfect round
teeka on my forehead,

both Indians in exile
one on his own land
the other for whom
the rising of the sun
was at once its setting
as on her own land
seven seas away

In the corner stood our witness
The piano with its
stern, philosophic countenance
European in its temper
Pregnant with sopranos and crescendos

Our homeland
we agreed
was the horizon
where all the Indians go
after they die

Delicate rings of smoke
rose from coffee-cups
and the songs of silence drowned the piano;

Inside Java House
the earth met the sky
for us to reach
our homeland.
without dying.

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