“Turning to the drought”

Turning to the drought in the political dispute,

I kept quiet about the flock of birds

That had risen from the riverbank

Like a wave rising in a thousand fragments.

But pointing to a bird in our midst,

The participants already half asleep,

I raised my voice and said one of the fragments

Had landed on the table.

At once everyone jumped in.

The fragment, they said, had come in

Through the window;

It was perched on a peg in the wall;

They wanted to freshen up, etcetera.

And the wave’s face resembles a river.

The face of a bucket of water resembles a river.

With parliament taking the shape of a comb,

The government decided to lose all its hair.

1966