Translated from the Adi to the English by the writer.
The evening is

the greatest medicine-maker

testing the symptoms

of breath and demise,

without appointment

writing prescriptions

in the changing script

of a cloud’s wishbone rib

in the expanding body

of the sky.
We left the tall trees standing.

We left the children playing.

We left the women talking

and the men were predicting

good harvests, or bad

that winged summer

we left, racing with

the leopards of morning.
I do not know

how we bore the years.

By ancient, arched gates

I thought I saw you waving

in greeting or farewell

I could not tell,

when summer

changed hands again

only the eastern sky remained;

one morning

flowering peonies

swelled my heart with regret.

Summer’s bitter pill

was a portion of sky

like a bird’s wing

altering design,

a race of fireflies

bargaining with the night.

Attachment is a gift of time,

the evening’s potion provides

heaven’s alchemy

in chromosomes of light

lighting cloud-fires

in thumbprints of the sky.