Clouds in the valley...

As I look at my tiny oasis of jade - my backyard garden, I can see a stream of visitors that come and go with the flowing seasons. This time, I wanted to write about the noisy miner, a small native bird belonging to the honeyeater family, more reminiscent of the myna or starlings that are so common back home. The miner, justifying its name, becomes pretty noisy and territorial in nesting season, attacking every visitor.   With this theme, I composed, not one but two poems over back-to-back days, trying to experiment with style and depth. The theme remains the same, that of my learning from the tiny bird. However, the first is more rhythmic, focusing on the play of syllables and rhymes, creating almost a ballad-style poem, with quatrains and a sing-song consistently rhythmic ABCB pattern. In contrast, with the second one, I worked on a blank verse: with unyoking of the need for meters and rhythms, I felt freer to focus on the words and with it a bit of depth. No more rhythm, ju...

  With age, Life teaches, (As it always does) We will often need To raise the wall Of the dams of our days Higher still, To keep more within Than without   The frivolous world May not always need The gifts of our spillway There is value In raising the parapet Holding the glacial melts That one day, When summers despair   And clouds retreat All the collected wisdom Is trickled With parsimony, Then alone The parched world appreciates Drops of yesterday That never disappeared   Until then, The catchment remains green, The abutment damp The taller parapet holds The largesse of age As the dam speaks silently More and more to itself That the lowlands don’t understand…   26 th November 2025   ChatGPT Analysis : The poem uses the extended metaphor of a dam to explore how people, with age, become more protective of their inner selves. The “wall” that must be raised represents emotional ...

  Why do we write? You ask, The simple answer is, We have too much blood Intoxicated and inebriated By the melancholy of Brooding everydays   We are then destined to bleed, The only way to Let go of the accumulated suffocation Is to slit the veins And watch the corpuscles Ooze, drop by drop Into a thick, messy mass   That blood-letting So important Is the true essence of writing – Too much toska Needs to be distributed Back to the sunshine of the world From where the shadows came   So, we write Letting go of emptiness, Recovering, bit by bit Only to bleed again    – to let go Of whatever we never were To breathe, and turn To whatever we never will be….   25 th Nov, 2025  

Fernweh  (German):  A longing for faraway places;  Translates to ‘Far sickness’, in contrast to Heimweh (‘homesickness, longing for home’). And every time, I see a jet - Its contrail, deep-blue skies, Something stirs deep within: A sad longing, As the heart fills up with sighs The mind, Fecund rich, imagines: The jet is going far, Why return When the world beckons, A galaxy, distant star The brooding mind Goes far indeed To the places we have read, Far off deserts, valleys wild Sandy ruins, farther still - The Seas of Black and Red Caravan trails, Steppes of vast Civilizations and their rocks, Islands of spice And dragon boats Through cliffs of lime and chalks So much to see This rock of billion years in age, How can one stay at home? Were we meant To grow our roots? Or were we meant to roam? Perhaps it is not wrong To long for far, To seek Marco, Ptolemy’s dreams To follow Fahien, Hieun Tsang ...

  There is that much emotion These little eyes Can try to hold, How much more can you fight? Even though, I must admit You have been bold   Bold enough, That throughout the day, You fought, you smiled, and also lied But when the light disappeared, No one looked: You gave in, and you finally cried   I could see the pain - The glacial melt From all the streams of your yesteryears They now grew large Flooding the lands In the infinity of a face of tears   Yet, that salty stream Of your mourning eyes, Is purer than our hearts can be – For our grown-up love - Purposeful, planned, While even your tears come innocently   Such is life, a teacher hard It taught you rainbows, fairies once Now it’s showing that the clouds are grey I can only hug you to your sleep Knowing tomorrow, You’ll older turn by one more day…   21 st November, 2025   Written after my daughter came back home one day...

  Red hornet Hovers in my garden, I stand still, My fear gradually dissolving To amazement, At the sheer beauty, The blood red iridescence Epitomic of nature’s flamboyance At its bizarre best What beauty, I whisper   ‘Smash it!’ my wife cries Scared of the slightest venom That can hint Of anaphylaxis pain. ‘Yes’. I lie And grab the Baygon But I cannot commit sacrilege Of this most splendid sojourner To my garden’s green; The possible sting, is a willing price   But the hornet Is not done yet, In testing the karmic boundaries Of my hostmanship; A few days later I shudder to find my carmine guest Intruding into my sacral shrine It had come inside my house And now trapped, Was buzzing around in search of escape   Spray it, kill it, gas it My survival instincts begged, Trapped inside my den It was most likely to suicidal die In an aggravated attack And yet again, I failed A failed king with no bounda...

My cucumbers had bloomed The first harvest, a small bounty Tendrils, climbers, leafy shoots White blossoms wherever you see   But that was not the only first, Yellow ladybirds were seen as well Cutest guests in my garden green But little then did it ring a bell   I would gaze at them, their elytra wings Endless photos, polka dots, I adored the reds, here were lemony ones Whirring ‘bout like little robots   But in a span, weeks of few The cucumber plant began to wilt, Was it the sun? Was it the shade? The gardener me was filled in guilt   Until I found larva strewn Upon the leaves, now brown and dry Tiny grubs all gold and black Beetles indeed, I had to sigh   Which to save, which to die A Hobson’s choice whatever I do Let nature take a call, I said Either way, I will have to rue   Summer went, the beetles thrived Tiny Volkswagens zooming round When autumn came, they flew away Wings not mean...

I stare outside At two towers of jacaranda – Even farther lies A clump of yellow grevillea; Ah Spring - the season of colours But I think, no This is the season of rebellion An overwhelming sea Of shades in the spectrum Standing defiantly Until inevitably There is only one ocean of green   First came the magnolias Then the plums, peaches, apricots Those delicate Sakura The golden wattles’ native fight Finally with the early tints of a dying night The purple explosion Of jacaranda every avenue you see Withstanding the last siege Of spring’s assault Until they all disappear And you cannot find the crab apples Hiding in plain sight   Precocious buds That come even before their leafy brethren Get born on summer’s descent Fighting a lost fight, an existential brawl The truth is, the world has no time For spring’s blossoms Only mundane existence abounds That we get busy with our lives But one day, a dreary sky app...

I have been A shamelessly lazy gardener - Summer has arrived But I have no intention Of cleaning the weeds, Or clearing the detritus From last year’s largesse Of growth in my garden   More than intention, There is little will, Beyond the burnout Of a so-called busy life; Meanwhile, nature thrives Happily in the entropy Burgeoning in the space Between mower, shear and rake   I stare with guilt now Scatters of dandelions Have grown where Neat and tidy pots should have graced But wait, A flash of carmine red A rosella, no, two Nibble away at the dandelion feast   Crimson graces my Jardin - For the first time, I recollect, But would these merlot plumes Have come, in a neater cleaner patch? The berry-hued birds prance For a good long hour As I watch – the ornithologist, Scarlet scampers in the afternoon sun   It is when they depart That I wonder, Why does nature behave thus? And I laugh myself ...