Once I got a postcard from the Fiji Islands
with a picture of sugar-cane harvest. Then I realised
that nothing at all is exotic in itself.
There is no difference between digging potatoes in our Mutiku garden
and sugar-cane harvesting in Viti Levu.
Everything that is is very ordinary
or, rather, neither ordinary nor strange.
Far-off lands and foreign peoples are a dream,
a dreaming with open eyes
somebody does not wake from.
It’s the same with poetry – seen from afar
it’s something special, mysterious, festive,
No, poetry is even less
special than a sugar-cane plantation or potato field.
Poetry is like sawdust coming from under the saw
or soft yellowish shavings from a plane.
Poetry is washing hands in the evening
or a clean handkerchief that my late aunt
never forgot to put in my pocket.
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