Clouds in the valley...

Like a bottle of wine, days mature Bit by bit, in coloured glass, We claim liberation in astringency Though the taste is never sweet; Staying afloat, savouring the ecstasy We look back, in shiny tumblers What remains, are slowed down memories And even slower a pensive heart-beat   But at the end, we are all the same A bottle of emptiness, tinted from outside Inside, every moment, a bit less Just lingering – a fragrance of vintage old From some place far away Deep within, just a bottle of emptiness…

Above the hills of a tea estate, I was walking all alone, When I chanced upon a watchtower Standing on its own   Three flights of wooden stairs later, I found a cell upon the tower, A vantage for the olive hills Sprayed with cosmos flower   And right in front, in porcelain Cast a mountain dream, Somewhere far, the trickling sound Of a distant lively stream   What more to ask, the mountains had Blessed me a temple room To sit and think for endless hours, And melt away my gloom   And so I’d walk at every dawn To see the sunrise from my shrine, And sunsets too, intoxicated Without a drop of wine   There was something in that magical place As if consecrated by the earth, A chrysalis – that changed in me My frowns with peaceful mirth   The grandness of the cosmos stared The stars shone in the day, I realised – some see the dais, the curtains too Others: lost inside the play   (And you can...