Tavoy Evening

Where in the emerald evening the hills change color
From murky sea green to estuarine blue,
The thickets breathe scents of childhood, trees burst aflame
And buds are liquid spurts of soft, fresh light.

The rutted road is old and ivy-wise with mysteries,
The patient boulder ponders on another day’s close,
There is a sudden scamper of bats in the gables
And a shudder of wings in the mazy tamarind.

Across the stubble fields, bubbled through the palms,
The crow-pheasant’s low call beats against the evening’s throb,
I hear it in the tombs and sepulchers of my breast
Like moon-echoes through ancient temples at Pagan.

The lazy cattle come home beside the rising river,
On the tangled earth-banks the swelling pools gurgle,
The boatman stirs the swirling muddy water
While the suntide ebbs and the seatide flows.

On the lead pipe in the garden the drop has poised too long,
Too long has the equivocal haze lain on the hills.
Why are you like the haze and the droplet?
Our days leak through these emerald sieves too soon.