Worldly Possessions

Gandhi made do with
dinner bowls, a wooden fork and spoon,
three porcelain monkeys,
his diary, prayer-book, watch.
He had a bowl to spit into, for when he fasted,
paper knives, two pairs of sandals.
And that was all.
They are in a garden, still,
where he died.

I tell myself that I could make do.
Sell my books, my clothes, that great wooden hull of a house.
The sky is mine - all yards and yards of it,
like spun-cloth, woven-water.
So too the concrete streets and city jazz.
Mine, theirs. I begrudge no one.
I have every right.

This is refrain and chorus, while folding linens, shutting windows.
I lock the garden door behind me, go upstairs,
to seethe and hum, pretend I am a loom.

CDL

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