mother is on vacation in a foreign country away from son and husband leaving me to do the dishes do the dishes - mind the spoons don't land at the bottom the tamarind doesn't clog the sink the vessels don't clatter and clang and bring on angry neighbours while the clothes are washing the clothes are washing coloured one in first batch towels and undies to go in the next and then to be hung out to be hung out the outer clothes on the balcony with a ladder and a stick and the inner ones dripping in the rear balcony in the rear balcony the broom and mop stand there grumbling silently about the dusty stain bedecked floor the dusty stain bedecked floor piled over with books and gadgets screaming loudly to be re-placed on their respective shelves which gloat and induce guilt about the undone dusting undone dusting and uncooked food and unfolded clothes and unbought groceries and unpaid bills and undisposed garbage how did she manage them all ...
The message is supreme;
Born in the heart,
and lilting itself
from tongue to tongue,
throwing its scent
over wind and wave;
travelling on dots
or fingers
when blindness
or silence bar its way.
It hews itself into stone
or burns itself onto magnetic discs;
it is the message that lives
and I exist
solely to pass it on.