In a station, some cat slept under some bench.
The pictures you took were framed in air.
What is that in Malay? What is that in French?
In a station, some cat slept under some bench,
her dream always either of fish or chase.
What is that in Malay? What is that in French?
The lineage of whereabouts can be traced
to a dream always of either fish or chase
around corners, through alleys, a rough passage
the lineage of whereabouts can trace
to time’s specific message.
In corners, alleys, on the rough passage
you were tossed seasick and disoriented
by time’s specific message:
leave behind the haunts you frequented.
That left you seasick and disoriented.
To find your bearings in flux,
you left the haunts you frequented,
hitchhiked, jumped trains, rode in trucks
to find your bearings in flux
on an axis of going and gone.
You hitchhiked, jumped trains, rode in trucks,
wrote home on a page torn from a lexicon
to access other words for going and gone.
Here, there’s a banyan played in gamelan.
Caught in its branches a page from a lexicon
that might call roots, age, or waking, dawn.
Here, there’s a banyan played in gamelan.
The pictures you took were framed in air,
caught in their borders a page from a lexicon
that gives today as a way to say somewhere.