noontime and normal nothing <br />abnormal in the reach of the small <br />unskeining spool of fishnet thread <br />slipped drawn by the wind across <br />fingerprinted sand <br /> <br />caught in a scurrying <br />bent crab's knee <br /> <br />floated by wind and weed <br />lit by the sun <br /> <br />suddenly diminished sea <br />sound and tree sound plain <br />windsong <br /> <br />and a child <br />now too full of the events since <br />cries his heart out inside me <br /> <br />is <br /> called back to <br />satisfactory <br />consoling <br />forgotten <br />taste <br />and sound <br />of small underthighs slapping <br />against cool wetted floor <br /> <br />hot windy day <br />you walk a little distance <br />over the humped grass crusted dune <br /> <br />where sunbaked <br />windblown <br />sand burns bare skin <br /> <br />covers and uncovers <br />an eyeless orange fishskin <br /> <br />bay grave <br />sea silenced for the unmoving minute <br /> <br />as sand uncovers a burrowing toe <br /> <br />single person singular one man walking carefully on <br />the stiff cold spiked weed patch path <br /> <br />over blown baked sand <br /> <br />in silence wind snatches <br /> <br />words <br /> <br />agitated <br />cross <br /> <br />out of context <br /> <br />from distant conversation <br /> <br />noontime and <br />a prayer is about to be said <br />for a child cradled <br />in the saffron arms of his father <br /> <br />for burial <br />on the other side of the hump <br /> <br />-June 28,1972<br /><br />umashankar manthravadi<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/landscape-without-figures/
