Boiling softly rice until it swells
and then the question comes:
is eating one single grain of rice
(soft now too, salty from the brine)
the same as eating rice?
Is saying je t’aime and meaning it
the same as speaking French?
Is saying it the same as love?

2.
We are parts of what?
I am a grain of what?
Is growing up the same
as cooking rice?
Or let me bother you again:
is one snowflake the same as snowing?
I will sit here till the answer comes.
something about numbers,
something about the sky.

3.
A smiling round-faced girl
brought the platter in.
Can you tell already
that I’m lying? The rice
never left the pan. One grain
only did I taste of it.
Nothing happened but the image did.

4.
Sundays in Heaven
must be special days
when all the fortunate ascended
turn their devotions down on us
the billions of beings
ripening below, each one
of us a grain. Sometimes
they use sunshine to study our dreams.

5.
This morning is all white and grey,
I try to exit from the dream
but once dreams get inside you
you’re inside them for good.
I want to be a car, headlights on,
hurrying towards anywhere, even here.

7 February 2021