Deep Water Bay, Hong Kong Poem by Ananta Madhavan

1. Night is moving in the garden
Light is watching still.
On the blue-black sky the inky hill
Is black as my blunted anger.

2. Stand stark before the sea in the wind's lashing,
Let the rain drops stab your face.
Mark the waves assault that worn rock,
Stubborn both. How the white foam swirls
And vanishes into the greying green.

3. The world is darkening,
Colours drain away,
The spectrum of greys
Is grimly beautiful.

4. Spiked by pines,
The bay shimmers.
A ship's wake heals.
The hazy horizon
Shades water into sky.

The far island
Is a misty dinosaur.
Dark rises Cone Hill:
On its top, a pin-prick aerial,
On its brow, a pavilion's curl,
On the slope, cold shadows.
The sun tries patterns on my balcony.

- - - -

I was an Indian diplomat in Hong Kong,1974-76.