I took this photo in Kerala. Every time I look at it I feel something different about it. Yesterday, when I felt lonely, it was an image of loneliness. At other times, it’s an image of a fisherman quite happily going about his business. Many things are like the man in the catamaran. Our minds will always spin the story that’s closest to home.

The man in the catamaran
is lost in a teacup
a breathing mast
a beating sail.

The man in the catamaran
is a genius on a plank of wood
hands spinning out his net
every move a masterpiece

The man in the catamaran
is a desperate sketch
a wisdom out of step with time
with thankless mouths to feed.

The man in the catamaran
is a floating poet, a drifting sage
reading squalls in a fish’s eye
time in a wave.

The man in the catamaran
licks his salt from the wind
has no one to answer to
no one to blame.

The man in the catamaran is
lonely as an asteroid
content as a friar
noble as marble
dull as backache
free as a bar fight

deep as the sea from where he came…..