This city

You may find in your wanderings around this place

Bustling towers with washing cheerfully hanging

And fluttering in the afternoon breeze changing

To lit pillars by evening with passages twinkling

With dark looks, silken heads and damp mouths.

You may find in your wanderings around this place

Exponents of mahjong and badminton in noisy talk

Drowning the screeching of wheeled luggage

Brought home by harried lawyers and tense pilots.

You may find all this and as the clock ticks to eleven,

Chemical workers, real-estate agents, secretaries

Spent commuters in ties and stilettos pausing

To shift their faces from gaunt to glad like buttons

On vending machines with feelings for a coin or two.

You may find all these and then in a quiet corner

Between the sleepy heat and the cooling five pm

Parkland, red bench, brown leaves, busy birds

A sun-browned fisherman stands at water’s edge

Memories of a thousand years etched in his palm

As he turns on hearing your rude interruption and

His face, knowing, rests unlined on you.