I Hear The Keys by B. A. Varghese

I Hear The Keys

The mound on which I rest is thick, soft,
strong. I sit inside a box inside a box
inside yet another box of brown. I look over
the top. There in the green the color of green
stretches beyond into the grey. I wait,
for the sound is a hush of the waves.

In grey ripples, green bamboos in a clump
sit halfway submerged. The sea is black beyond
the top. A wind blows over the bamboos, over yellow
stalks with green corners, bending, with leaves
of sharpest green. I smell the crisp wind and hear
the sea with waves inching onto sand, but not crashing.

Waves ease onto shore. A white seagull flaps,
flutters, floats in wind with small white eyes circled
in blackness. The bamboos call, from a distance,
with leaves waving back and forth, inviting,
but I wonder why it is there, yet it sits
in a sea of glass and shimmer.

The bamboos see me.

Turning, it moves away, ripples
in the water, waving away in the wind. It leaves
along the sound of keys. I wave and all
is gone. Now dark clouds rain, waves
crash into shores of sand, where the mound
has lost its look, its load, its laugh.

There are no more in the sea. Darkness
in the distance lights up, flashes jump
from cloud to cloud, whispering where
the bamboos went, to a place we all
must go. Clouds thunder their secret song
of where the waves have taken them to the deep.

This song I sing will note
of all of existence, existing before me.

by B. A. Varghese

Editor’s Note: Repetition and personification imbue this poem with a lyrical narrative voice.