Clouds in the valley...

  From within the folds Of all our memories deep - (Those musty brown newspapers Some of which are still asleep)   Emerge dried petals Stored safely from a yesterday Wildflowers picked and gathered From beside a weary way   Some in happiness, some in joy Others in melancholy lost And yet some more, gifted, and taken not - When Spring arrived beyond the frost   Dried petals, leaves, stamens and all That had crumbled long time back Forgotten most as days passed by Lost beneath the memory stack   Yet, look at them thus framed in time The picture’s perfect all, All the colours now make sense Through winter, summer, fall   And even if they don’t, we have A painting of our broken times Nectar, fragrance lost and gone Left behind the petalled rhymes   A western breeze blows them all The flowers are all free, To be born again, anew afresh To be someone else’s memory…   1 st October’22 ...

    All the songs we never sung, Were written with love, perhaps long ago, In un-creased pages, stored with care Waiting for the perfect sun to glow   All the notes we never hummed, Were tuned with the best of you and me So soothing to burnt heart and soul Broken cages, all set free   But the perfection stayed in sheaves of hope Neatly boxed and shelved and stored, No voice imperfect gave them life - Like an empty river without a ford   Perhaps, if you could right the notes all wronged, And sing even with a raspy voice, The imperfect stars of dusk would tell The brightest sun was never a choice   Perhaps, if I could fold and crease and mark The albums that I saved instead This world would have more songs to sing, And all this music would not fade…   21 st September, 2022      

  The dark shroud wraps us all In gasps of breathlessness We look up in choking eyes And pray And the tears float up in the night sky Like wisps of hopelessness And singe the clouds With day   From the pores pour Streams of starlight And in those spangles, peace comes Without the slightest fight Then you understand the wonders Of a starry spangled night…

  The rest of the world Melts and drips as in Dali’s art - Here a vanished soul, there a dissipated heart Sulking away in April’s rage Everyone playing their broken part   The only glimmer brighter Than this parching hot summer’s day – The Golden showers, as if they say, Look at us, we contain the sun And hence we are in mirthful play   Unscathed by dust of a gasping loo, The empty heat gets them to glow, Shimmering scales of the seasons’ flow But who has time for burning hues, A today lost in a tomorrow   Yet, tomorrow when the world calms down (A different shower heals in turn), One busy soul may stop to run, And ask, were there not few colours here? But the golden showers long left the sun…