Pre-dawn

The rooms are full of half light and shadow Prayers bring light and then the sun Puts in somewhere little blobs of pale morning shine Past tall trees I go to the hills Take a cup of Darjeeling tea In a half-glass tankard Full of hill smell and joy Mountain peaks and blue-grey rising upward A lone karking crow Then away to five hundred years Before Christ Buddha teaching in Pali Teaching aspirants to eschew craving Which chokes the plant like a maluva creeper One must seek the fragrant usira root Under the pile of birsana grass Then I go to water the Ted Hughes plant In the verandah The hibiscus is in riotous bloom Dollies open Eggs from the fridge to be half-boiled Doors unlocked For the outside world to come in