(Nov. 1999) Summers at Grandfather's -- Darkened rooms with dusty corners And mysterious bookshelves Behind silent cobwebs, Bookshelves deliciously laden With exotic fruit Of different shores in time And I, alight, like an eager young eagle Poised at the door Then treading in stealth In fear of the spiders who in turn want to hide from me Transcending time and place Leaning against an ancient dressing table In an ancient room In an ancient house So many intricate labyrinths Lead in and out of Grandfather's narrow lane Tall buildings holding it in line with their narrow faces The house in front Has on top A green wooden veranda with a red floor Years gone by there lived a boy Who kept his kingdom there As I reigned in mine And teased me across the narrow space Wedged between verandas Oh, how I loved and hated him ---- I cannot quite remember the hate I remember I loved him as a companion In the inevitable lonely hours Of a grandparents' house Before has dawned on one The magic of books ageing sweetly And the lingering scent between their pages Grandmother's almira Of dark rose wood with a mirror in front Where I discovered first, all on my own The mystique of the looking-glass world Alice and I Became sisters Across distances, across years Long before I heard of Lewis Carroll Father and his surprise kites -- Colour and taut paper Joy and lightness -- lovingly handmade And strung with home made string Waiting on Grandmother's four-poster bed Kites waiting to be flown Waiting to rise high and away From the roof of the old old house Away from the dark rooms With the red floors and heavy black-polished furniture Where chinks of hesitant sunlight Abashedly creep From between iron bars Of green shuttered windows My kites on Grandmother's four-poster bed -- One more doorway, To transcend...