Theirs is the summer of nothing,

Of less than nothing.

Their voices stick to their dried throats.

They have no time for beaches or birdsongs;

Their children have no coins for an ice-cream.

Even evening rain,

That scarce relief from hell on earth,

Is to them only as welcome as the sturdiness

Of their mud walls and bamboo roofs.

 

Mine is the summer of something,

Of more than nothing.

I speak from a throat, sore from too many sherbets.

Discontent brings me to the beach, but mutes

The waves and the boy selling groundnuts.

Even evening rain,

That rare respite from hell on earth,

Is to me only as welcome as the sensitivity

Of my heart’s fences and mind’s ceiling.

 

Yours seems the summer of everything,

Or, at least, of anything.

Your silence is as eloquent as the sea.

You listen to the ebb and flow of waves,

And hear in them life’s joys and sorrows, passing.

Even evening rain,

That little glimpse of heaven on earth,

Seems to you always welcome,

For your house, made home by breezes…

 

Has open doors for a heart,

And a skylight for a mind.