Waking: 2026

1  Waking, I dream of  the tattered ends of magic:   flame trees, a white house.     2  How could others count?   On the biggest rock of all  I hook my leash.   3I read the torn photo, the boy, entering a car,beneath frangipani trees. 4Ice blocks melt on lawns, the dinner party long over. Now the dawn crows caw. 5I made my gardenwith the mali, plunging twigs into watered earth. 6Deposed now, the queen sits above the Adyar with her transistor. 7Nothing is missing,the supermarket stocks all. And, plastic Buddhas. 8Only fireworks -no gunshot, bombs, villages circled by spiked heads. 9Always she is there -airports, stations, quay, car parks, angel without wings. 10This, my bomb helmet,my dog that sleeps skull-to-skull. What else would I need? 11A millennia agoarmies crept through these hills, razed the grand kingdom. 12An easy trick to play – that nothing matters at all but what matters most. 13Dawn. The babbler calls, and the small niggardly things fade into the night. 14Pub, party, shopping – all entrapment, is it not, forgetting what’s next? 15Licking each other,all day my dogs show their care. Ah, if we could too. 16Jungle hills confusewhich way is north, which path leads to the shallow sea. 16The tea Wiji broughtCools fast.  I have spent too longdreaming in my bed. 17It will not complete –the four-sided perfect squarethat doesn’t quite meet.  19This is my tally -the long day burdened with scentof sapu flowers. 20They had no daughters,just sons who learnt not to speak,but come, go and go.  21Tiny waves recalllast movements of a great stormfar out in the sea.  Written in a moment between 6.30 and7.30 am in bed on 5th January 2026,