The Meeting
A gaunt figure, head bent, face obscured, walks through the withered grass at the edge of the field. I don’t know why I think it’s a he. The measured stride seems to suggest a certain sense of purpose. Where is he bound for, through our overgrown land? And why does he keep his arms by the sides, as if he dare not breathe even as he moves? Against the bobbing branches of the old cypress, he is like an apparition dropped from the belly of the rain-laden clouds. Is it the failing light or is his frame elongating with each step he takes?
I’m not sure what I should say when we come face to face. A white Apsoo crashes through the shrubs. I bend to pat it.
‘Is this your dog?’
Even before I look up he is gone.
dipping
into the setting sun –
a swan’s head
Born and raised in the kingdom of Bhutan, Sonam Chhoki is inspired by her father, Sonam Gyamtsho, the architect of Bhutan’s non-monastic modern education. Her Japanese short form poetry has been published in poetry journals and anthologies in Australia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, India, Japan, UK and US and included in the Cultural Olympics 2012 Poetry Parnassus and BBC Radio Scotland Written Word Programme.