I've owed and become tireless in this clime,
Knowing your work is great, not minor;
I'm a pleader of your old vigour,

Where this abode is bad and acerbic,
You've laid ostrich egg to outlay eggs
Laid before. To move heavy legs

Across the red sea is effortlessly dismissed;
You're mercilessly wagged by men,
But filling of the blankness is your pen

Of seemingly good nature. Your happiness
Is to see the happiness of the ones helped
By the people you've helped.

You as you as you are known,
The house is dying... drying -
Recalcitrants, and tyrannies are occupying.

One melted strength of I is seen across the street.
Help! There are futures in this festive
Singing and dancing, but inactive;

The chirps of the crickets are
engorged by youths cyclone,
The poet remains as you've known before
Performs without border to humanity door.

Where sparrows wings are wet, there
is no cocoon;
So let the poet's thought be rebuilt,
Not hidden, but to refresh against this guilt.

© A A Alexander Ozu, 2009.
(Seed and Nature, collection of poems.)