All night the gentle rain in my sleep. This land is thirsty, and so am I. Walking out at dawn, there’s no one around but the village café is open for takeaway. Stand under an awning with a coffee, in a dream of dripping tents long ago. Last night’s news, that the world has topped two million cases of COVID-19. But our chief medical officer, a conservative gentleman, believes it’s five or ten times that number. Many countries have little testing or tracing.
I am
the water table
rising
out of pores and fissures
to flood the world with tears
—Republished here with author’s permission from Tanka Poets
on Site (Facebook: 17 April 2020)
lives in Canberra, Australia and writes tanka in its cafes. His poetry has been
published in Atlas Poetica, Eucalypt, Haibun Today, and Ribbons.
He dances, grows vegetables, prays for rain, and travels frequently to hang out with
grandchildren in Sydney and in Stockholm.
