1.

In the South they say: birds fly north for summer

Proud white storks are pacing on the walls of the kasbah
in the desert in winter like soldiers, atop the fortress

Snow white feathers, ebony colored wings
beaks red as blood, the fairytale

People say they bring luck
and that they bring children
and children bring luck
they say and wink

Would you stay the night
your snow white skin
hair the color of ebony
and lips red as blood
Will you stay?

2.

A few minutes after the sunrise I walk on the cold meadow in dew
and pick a few flowers whose names I can’t recall
I pick, so that my modest table in the hundred-year old farmstead will be
beautiful when I drink my morning tea
half an hour later
returning I’m wondering how many sunrises ago
I last saw you and
how you smelt
and then my heart beats one beat too many

3.

How many people fit into one canoe?

We have just anchored in between uninhabited
islands, white beaches and mangroves
and yet we have been noticed

A whole family, father, mother and three small kids

They are paddling towards us, dark faces and hands
wearing t-shirts, shining teeth, mouths like growing moons
the man lifts up two pineapples, they came
to trade, woman is looking for beads
the eldest son shuffling out water

We don’t share a common language, but body language is enough

to do the talking, so what would they like in return?
Some flour or sugar or salt? Pencils, fishing hooks
they are spreading their arms, doesn’t matter, give us something
we don’t care, from the cockpit we find

a small bag of flour, a few toys and an old
dress of mine. It is probably more than expected
still they have huge smiles on their faces
they are nodding and discussing something

Would you have some sweets for the kids?

and when they arrive back home, the pineapple shells afloat,
they step into their bamboo hut
kids quarreling over candies, woman trying on the dress
and the man sits down, with his back against twilight
on his face the same blinding white smile

4.

In this dream I am swimming in the
greatest and bluest pool in the world
four thousand meters deep
blue as an ocean

I float like a jellyfish
tentacles many meters long
and stinging, I hover
like the empty shell of a nautilus

first weightless but then
I become heavy
and sink slowly
with the sun’s rays glittering on the surface
a parrotfish stares at me with open beak
it’s tearing and burning in my chest

the deeper, the darker it gets
and I don’t reach the bottom
my insides cannot handle the pressure
but I’m not allowed to
scatter back into elements

it is Shesha
the snake with a thousand heads
who is suddenly holding me
again on the light blue surface
against blue sky
like he was holding Vishnu
floating across an endless
dream, across the ocean
the greatest and bluest
pool in the world

5.

At night
beneath the dark clouds
two fishermen
row in a wooden canoe

Looking beneath each stone
listening to every sound
all their senses and their nets are ready

With the same canoe
and on the same sea
just like their ancestors
ten thousand years before

Hunting for the dreams of the fish