1.
To honour the returning sun,
a zephyr stirs the tranquil night.
It speaks to sleepy birds of flight.
and ripples reeds as rivers run
through grassy banks where flowers wait,
and birds begin to trill and coo,
charming yawning people who
are working early or up late.
It wakes the waters and the land
and from the window where I stand
to watch the paths which come this way,
I hear the markets and the quay.
Zephyr, bring my love to me
and let me join the coming day.
2.
Of days and nights
of previous tenants,
little remains. No
fading photos,
no hint of perfume.
Little remains of
previous tenants
but this,
a pit in a peeling wall,
cratered,
as if in a sudden,
violent anger.
3.
You create a constellation with a
finger as we lie,
curling in each other’s warmth
beneath a cloudless sky,
and listen to the rustles from
the darkness of a tree,
and in the movement of the night
we smell the starlit sea.
May many nights be like tonight,
I say and you reply,
but let us lie here while we may
beneath a cloudless sky.
Stuart Payne lives in Cape Town, South Africa.
