Dream

 

Do you know,

What often seems like a dream to me?

 

That winter evening

When I visited you,

There, seated at your balcony,

Watching winter’s cold sunlight

Flooding the woods beyond

The coppersmith barbet at work

Toc-a-toc, toc-a-toc

The coucal prancing in the sun

Squirrels chattering, babblers hopping

As if it was still Summer

And you coming with a cup of cinnamon tea

That amber evening –

Still feels like a dream to me

 

Or the other day,

Walking by the lakeside

No more hand-in-hand

But still walking with smiles

As if it were yesterday,

Then, finding no paddleboats

For a joyride

Yet sitting by the banks

You finding artistic beauty

In a broken boat growing with mangroves

While I looking out for cormorants and darter birds

That lakeside morning’s mist -

Still feels like a dream to me

 

Or that evening in the nor’wester

You huddled under the umbrella

Hesitant to get wet

While I drenching in the thunderstorm

Under the neon gaze of the purple bridge

As passers-by wondered

Of my delirium,

That curtain of August’s tears

Those claps of thunder

The swell of the Ganges –

And the rains that could dissolve your identity -

Still feels like a dream to me

 

But as I think deeper,

Pensively, I wonder:

Tender moments that splinter

At the slightest touch

Will always remain a dream,

But what of every day’s moments of sweat

And sobs and splits and sighs?

You trying to hold together

A world, as the universe implodes

You trying to harvest dewdrops of hope

As we all await for rain,

Unlocking doors without a key –

Isn’t that a dream?

 

Or those ordinary moments –

Falling asleep with your glasses on,

Dog-earing every page as you read so slow

Counting days to Mahalaya in summer,

Making paper boats even today,

Adding pepper to haldi,

Explaining molecular chemistry

(While I lost, stare at your dimple);

Like the horizon, this dream of yours

Is endless, expansive, every moment

Unfolding into a million moments

Each of these, a dream of dreams

But let me not go that far

 

Let me stay grounded in your everyday smile,

Let each moment feel like a dream to me…

 

20^th May, 2026