Dhaka Landing

From the plunging window of the twisted metal bubble of your aeroplane, you realise that
Dhaka is a life crammed city and a flotilla
of a thousand floodswept villages
scattered on the eroding clay fingers and mud flats of the largest delta in humanity.
The delta city of brown giant python like rivers and serpentine estuaries,
baby snake rivulets and tapeworm canals and
the shimmering blue green of the Bay of Bengal.
The delta city of coconut forests, concrete chaos,
marooned hamlets on riverine islands,
fleets of fishing boats and ferries and
the most beautiful rickshaws in the world.
The delta city which lives, dies and shimmers
at the mangled mouths of sweet rivers
of life and destruction,
a city planning to break out
into the sea.