It’s too late to travel them now
so cover me up with Persian rugs
and draw a canopy of silk around my bed.
Slide the bangle of lapis onto my left wrist
and the gold onto the right.
Let no-one forget I drove a Datsun from London to Amritsar
and saw Delphi, the mosque, the pass.
Where the traders have been – I have too.
In with the blood of Europe
there must be that of nomads.
So, bring me a horse.
Let it tattoo the floor with its impatient heels
and dance before me.
As well as your prayers
recite the Diamond Sutra, the Mahabharata
and shout thus spake Zarathustra.
Let me breathe my last
with a small statue of Siddhartha in this palm
Sarasvati in that.
Another rug now …
I am unafraid.

Lesley Synge

 

Lesley Synge lives in Brisbane. She has three poetry collections, Organic Sister (Post Pressed, 2005), Mountains Belong to the People Who Love Them (Post Pressed, 2011) and Signora Bella’s Grand Tour (self-published Zing Stories, 2019) and is collected in The Sky Falls Down (Ginninderra, 2019). She has an MA in Creative Writing from the University of Queensland and is an award-winning writer in many genres.

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