i am worn and the longing 
vines me tighter and tighter
I would sooner have your arms wrapped around me than the mindful want of them
But sogno beckons me
I would wait for you if you asked me
And I could tell you that in waiting
I would command my eyes open
Until you were near enough to touch
And only then
I may find my place
Where our breath moves in same
And I finally feel all my pieces

words © Malai Carrara 2012
Photography copyright © Nausher Banaji
all rights retained by photographer.

He often spoke of a girl and a monk
And the river he carried her over
He beckons to dismiss my mind
How many times do we pass our silence
And brush away our illusions
Tonight there would be no dismissing
I never want to forget
Tonight I returned to the flat rock
on which I once sat.
I carried my self, my thoughts, my thumps
With bards and willows as my audience
Waiting for reconciliation
Waiting for the others ~ 


© malai carrara 2012

Photography copyright © Nausher Banaji
all rights retained by photographer.

All afternoon the makers of anniversary cards
Have been snipping and stitching into 
The flatness of paper with needles
Making patterns, a pattern, the patter of children of children 
Hardly remembering what it was like to be without care

This house was waiting for us
Prototypes of perennials and plum tree blossoms
Lined with selected 20mm washed rock
and mulch covered geo textile
Anything to hold back the wild grasses

Husband and wife, sister and husband nod their heads
Approvingly about the new glass tea making gadget
which squeezes the tea from the bottom of the pot
“Don’t you think it’s lovely?” she asks
While I circle the rim of my cup - circles

No sooner did we pull the fork from our mouths did they
Hurry to remove all the plates – swift and invisible.
They had vanished - then thinking
How fun it would have been to exchange comedy and debate
Like we do in homes I know

Retreating to the traditional room for living
there was no comedy, no debate and frankly, no living.
As army ants they scurried, their weight in work
Stacking fragments of their past in a heap
And children of children dug holes in the garden with spoons

words © malai carrara 2012
Photography by Lisa meyer

The air freezes with flecks of the intolerable One breath to taste ambivalence One spoonful of breakfast cereal One depression in the remote control Even now as the room assembles with habits Of indifference and passivity I ask my spirits to hush, be still They must not make a sound For they would never understand how our solitary conversations comfort me.


words © malai carrara 2012 photographer unknown to me