You have my recurrent sick headache.

                                        I have your tea with honey and lemon.

                                        You are facing toward Japan.

                                        I have yard work to do right here.

                                        Together we might make such a one

                                        as caused the Others to pass judgment:

                                        a Japanese gardener, rife with complaints,

                                        and no place to look for meaning but within.

                                        We make our way, now in lonely unison,

                                        across an unyielding turf that could not care less.

                                        We walk beneath a sluggish, low-slung sky

                                        that is non-committal, perhaps harboring secrets.

                                        But we have plans and goals, vocation, so we hurry,

                                        our hands clutching blueprints and outlines for manuals.

                                        We pass some who seem to approve of our haste.

                                        Others merely turn aside to sneeze into their elbows.

                                        You still have my headache and the sky remains silent.

                                        Your tea has grown cold as our prized documents yellowed.

                                        The light starts to fail and we must concede at long last

                                        that one day the ground beneath us will open.

                                        Upon its dank breath, it will utter one word, like a note.

                                        Having tolled our name it will close, eternally, to chew.



                                        Rob Dakin ©2011