Lockdown

And couldn't escape the waking dream
of infected fleas

in the warp and weft of soggy cloth
by the tailor's hearth

in ye oldeEyam.
They couldn't un-see

the Boundary Stone,
the cock-eyed dice with its six dark holes,

thimbles brimming with vinegar wine
purging the plagued coins.

Which brought to mind the sorry storry
of Emmot Syddal and Rowwland Torre,

star-crossed lovers on either side
of the quarantine line

whose wordless courtship spanner the river
till she cames no longer.

But slept again
and dreamt this time

of the exiled yaksha sending word
to his lost wife on a passing cloud,

a cloud that followed an earthly map
of camel trails and cattle tracks,

streams like necklaces,
fan-tailed peacocks, painted elephants,

embroidered bedspreads
of meandows and hedges,

bamboo forests and snow-hatted peaks,
waterfalls, creeks,

the hieroglyphs of wide-winged cranes
and the glistening lotus flower after rain.

the air
hypnotically see-through, rare,

the journey a ponderous one at times, long and slow
but necessarily so.