Metamorphosis Water Buffalo

Metamorphosis Water Buffalo

no time

jp

I asked a water buffalo, once upon a time

Was the world divided into halves?

Haves and have nots

The buffalo asked back to me

(so I thought).

Buffalo

belly deep in muddy, rice paddy water

looked back at me

eyes forlorn and beckoning

chewed a cud of rice straw, said nothing

(tempt me to your table, so I thought).

Communicating on the surface

shared words we think we understand

ha ha she he says

I drool from the corner of my mouth

testing the taste temptationly

stare back at me

you I we know we are not communicating

but you write speak as though

we are

(did I imagine that I knew what was said)

My ego denies, we say…

used to this sort come flavour of response

hairless beasts

breasts or pricks to suckle

buttocks to pull and plow

work for me

I do not think I just am that

which sits beneath the mango apple tree

(snake, talk to me, please)

So, used to this kind of response

from the hairless and hairy beasts

with whom I am supposed to work live love

I lit myself a cigarette

(light me mine, too, please, bite my fruit)

I travel from strange countries

to which I travelled to

picked up habits that I do not understand thoroughly through

perceived as madness

you scream at me and I in silence back to you

so I light up smoke, inhale

exhale

temporarily withdrew

(light yours so too I will)

through God Koran Jesus

let me light the light I do not know

to speak and listen to the waters as they flow

allow me our my you self

a kind of helplessness

previously absent from my life

the buffalo swished its tail

a bird landed upon its back

(I thought I knew)

God landed before my eyes…

As I sat alone and smoked my cigarette

With you me I we

All together alone

(om…)

Together we.