Thirst

In cabins smelling of newly cut wood, windows find mountains, tree-
leaves spattered with light, the step of a son, living thousands of miles
away,
the monk you once saw in passing on the hill path.

It is too light here. The blue in the windows stark against the sunlit
treetops. None of it is real.

You are a prisoner of your sealed lids; you take in the scenes which pass
by your window to the world outside. In the next dream, there’ll be a set
of winding paths, not just one and you’ll have to follow them, twisting
back and forth , never finding the one that leads you out of the maze you
find yourself ensnared in.

When you wake, there’ll be nothing but thirst, rasping against your
tongue.

Arlene Zide’s work has been published in journals and anthologies in the US, Canada and in India such as The Alembic, Meridians (Smith College), Xanadu, Rattapallax, Primavera, Colorado Review, California Quarterly, Women’s Review of Books, Ekphrasis, A Room of Her Own, Oyez, Earth’s Daughters, Rhino, Kiss Me Goodnight, etc. and online in e.g., Anderbo.com, ChicagoPoetry.com, Kritya.com, RedRiverReview.com, ThePedestalMagazine.com, R-KV-RY.com, etc. She has lived in India nine times over the last 39 years, most recently involved in translation from Hindi. (An anthology of contemporary Indian women poets from Penguin India (1993) contains a number of her own translations.)

Translations from Hindi and other Indian languages have appeared in places as diverse as Smartish Pace, Manushi, Salt Hill, Paintbrush, Modern Poetry in Translation (UK), Blue Unicorn, Indian Literature, Hindi, Rhino, International Poetry Review; The Malahat Review, International Quarterly, Chicago Review, and in the Everyman series: Indian Love Poems in The Bitter Oleander, and the Norton Anthology of Middle Eastern and Asian Poetry.