Colours

We couldn’t go to the glacial lake that day,

The snowy valleys, clad in white

Reminded, what had we missed

Frozen lake, in earth’s upper altitudes

 

I was naturally upset,

But you could only laugh

‘But we were not supposed to go!’ you chimed

‘These are God’s lands

 

‘They allow only those

Who are worthy, deserving of the destination’

Undeserving me, was not amused,

We had come so far only for the lake

 

‘Today’s lesson is not white’

And you persisted with my stubbornness,

Fingers in my tousled hair,

You whispered, ‘Colours, don’t you see?’

 

As if in Divine intervention,

A fire-tailed sunbird came from nowhere

Showering rainbows on its track

‘It is showing us the way,’ you laughed

 

And we walked around pointlessly in pursuit

As you pointed out rhododendrons

In hidden shadowy corners

Blooms of a hundred hues

 

 ‘There, and there, and there’ you were euphoric,

Showing colours I would never see

The orange bills of blue magpies

The hues of fluttering prayer poles

 

And that monastery on the hill

Red carmine walls decorated

With paroxysms of a wonder palette

As Rimpoche watched our every step

 

The car honked - it was time to leave,

And you whispered your magic once again

‘Follow the firetail’s flight

Follow the colours, not your usual black and white.’

 

I wonder if I heeded your words truly,

Did I pursue colours to this day?

Tracing lost feathers in rainbows

Of hidden sunbirds in everyday’s hills

 

There are days though, when I yearn

Consciously for those colours

When I get suffocated in the brooding greys

Of my smoky dusty city far away

 

And there are days I realise

That day, it was not just me,

You too were draped in grey and white

Were the sunbird’s colours not meant for you?

 

Perhaps, Rimpoche’s eyes had seen everything

He smiled at the colours we couldn’t see

The flaming feathers of a fire-tailed bird –

On glacial white, spilling free…