By Sujata Bhatt

for Pearse Hutchinson, February 2012

2:00 am in Mumbai
and the crows are still loud.
They circle the trees –
hundreds of them around our house.
A crow has died and all the others
keep cawing, cawing through the night
into the morning – endlessly
they keep on calling for days.

I speak of death,
but it’s life I want to praise.

If your soul could travel
would you join me here?

A week later I’m surrounded
by the sound of Telegu
and the sound of another sea –
Even my sleep is green now
beneath the large leaves of an almond tree,
even my dreams are green now
breathing in the green of green coconuts –