Rhododendron dreams

 

I see red blooms in the morning mist,

In Illawarra’s shaded slope,

This fine cold, the mizzled skies

And the flowers grow with hope

 

Denizens of the highland homes,

The hills are where they thrive,

But not just they, my memories too

In the escarpment comes alive

 

For I have seen them in a chapter past,

In the Himalayan whites of snow,

In the hills of Shingba, Varsey where

They shine in their own alpenglow

 

And spring becomes a palette mix,

Bubbling with new-born streams,

Untamed yaks in sanctuaries

Awash with rhododendron dreams

 

 Sleet drapes the reds and pinks

Yet, a warbler flits with joy

A fire-tailed sunbird seeks some wine

Awestruck stands a vagrant boy

 

Awestruck still today am I,

Just as it was all yesterday,

That my dormant dreams have woken up

In these emerald hills of faraway

 

To remind as if that time has passed

I hear a kookaburra’s laughing sound

Yet in the petals of the Illawarra

I see Dzukou, Yumthang waft around…

 

6^th October’2022

 

I was walking in the Illawarra escarpment conservation area near Wollongong when I found magenta- and crimson-coloured rhododendrons, dancing in stark contrast to the moist greens all around. The few blossoms made my day for to me, they were sigils of the Himalayas – wherever you go along the mighty wall of snow you are bound to see these mountain dwellers thriving in multi-colour, particularly in spring. Rhododendron is the state flower of Nagaland, while being the state tree of Sikkim and Uttarakhand. There are rhododendron sanctuaries in north Bengal and Sikkim, with treks that culminate in these floral wonderlands. Ask any local here and you will get recipes of rhododendron chutney (and honey as well). For a vagrant of these hills, the valleys of flowers in Dzukou, Yumthang and Uttrakhand are incomplete without the rhodos.

With memories as fond as these, you can take the wanderer away from the mountains, but not the mountains from the wanderer. It then takes one walk in the Illawarra or the Great Dividing Range and all those lost dreams wake anew…

(All photos - author's archives)