The heat at the equator takes hold in your very bones
It grows, insidious and wanting, in your mind like mold
The dawn here does not creep cross window sills
Or slip in on padded feet
It rushes, flows and floods in burnished tides
To wrap you, sweating and restless, in its golden arms
Do not count the ways this land is not your home
Count the drops of monsoon rain
That throw themselves against the ground this time of year
But do not
Do not count the ways this land is not your home
Sometimes you forget
That you once knew the lies
Frost writes on window panes
That ten thousand miles distant
Count as truths
For a bare moment you may not long for northern climes
Do not count the days till you return
Count the moons that take the place of seasons
In ticking off the meter of the year
But do not
Do not count the days till you return
Cold flakes of frozen rain, here they are myths
Spoken of only in tomes of other parallels
Forget them like fairy tales
They have no hold in antique lands
In your too hot house under a too hot sun
Winter has no place here
Do not long for placeless things
Long for maybe futures
The flotsam and jetsam of the possible
But do not
Do not long for placeless things