‘Perhaps we matter in someone else’s dream’: Five poems from Mamang Dai’s new book of poetry

Narrative

I swallowed the current
At high tide I swam with the moon
I saw the wolves hunting
And all winter I dreamt of being a polar bear.

There are footprints climbing up to the sky,
And an ancient wing
Frozen beneath the earth.
Bone, teeth, hair, muscle,
There is food mingled in the swamp
And mangrove roots full of secrets.

The images mingle.
I see my father’s face blind with age
Turned towards me with a smile of sweetness.
Bittersweet, unexpected.
What baffles me is the fleeting image,
Perhaps we matter in someone else’s dream.

When There Are No More Words

When there are no more words,
the garrulous sentence is at last stripped to shreds,
into blood song, wreckage of bone,
the explosion of a wave
and ghost vessels dissolving
into this heart-cavity;
salt water.

So deep, this silence,
speechless with the mystery of your
absence.
Folded earth, folded,
dreaming of another horizon,
night wind drifting
into this heart-cavity;
breathless recall.

Long before we whirled into orbit
silence was a language.
In the amazing cadence of time –
one – two – three – four –
the deep hum of the universe,
infinite meaning
into this heart-cavity.
No writing on the wall.
No wall.

I’m Going Back to Old

I’m going back to old
To the springtime of water
And mesmerizing stories

Time, a silken rope
Summer night whispering illusion:

Is it true a stranger out of nowhere
Is better than a lover from the past?

Without a thought
Straight on with what is gone
Scattered jewels, melting ice
Beneath the clouds a silver road

This is no make-believe.
What does the moment know?
Rising on a bending wind
The shapeless moment before us
Is taking shape.

Sky. Mirror. Black earth.
Time. A songbird.
Those love songs were long
I’m going back to old.

The White Shirts of Summer

The afternoon sun burns, heart-stopping.
The movement of shadows is the length and stealth
of a cheetah.
Farewell to the room and the small fountain
that kept summer surging around us
now that the going is certain.

The dawn is pinned to my hair,
gust of sweet fragrance
lifting in the breeze.
Radiant, the white shirts of summer.

Without a map,
skimming over patches of land;
nothing was calculated.
Love was our prize, our sword,
our priceless amulet.
Your face in the cloud’s rapture,
soft words, slow hands
and the light falling
white, on the white shirts of summer.

Slipping a knot, far from shore,
deep troughs of water.
Then we were bouncing high,
touching the moon.

Rivers of sand, grey mountains of the sea.
When moments vanish,
a finger of sun touches my face
closing the distance.
Salt white, oracle blue,
an ocean deep throws a wave,
knocking the boats in our hearts.
Forever, and forever –
radiant, the white shirts of summer.

The Oasis Is a Memory of Rain

The oasis is a memory of rain.
Beloved of the sun,
the long dune stretches dreaming a summer
in the playground of kings,
chasing a river with eyes and limbs
and the visage of a god.

Sometimes
beads of water float on the horizon.
The land is a master of disguise:
A burial place.
A mirage.
A resurrection.

A man turns into a date palm
nourished with dreams of rest and beauty.
Women lean against the wind
bending in ancient vigil
with the breath of sons and daughters,
oceans and continents,
tracing a memory –

through aeons,
breathing a garden,
a lake, to worship under the sky
again above the ruins of temples and tombs.
Lifting your gaze,
beloved of the sun, scented with rain,
crossing from darkness to light
over a bridge of bones.

Excerpted with permission from The White Shirts of Summer: New and Selected Poems, Mamang Dai, Speaking Tiger Books.