Clouds in the valley...

  From within the folds Of all our memories deep - (Those musty brown newspapers Some of which are still asleep)   Emerge dried petals Stored safely from a yesterday Wildflowers picked and gathered From beside a weary way   Some in happiness, some in joy Others in melancholy lost And yet some more, gifted, and taken not - When Spring arrived beyond the frost   Dried petals, leaves, stamens and all That had crumbled long time back Forgotten most as days passed by Lost beneath the memory stack   Yet, look at them thus framed in time The picture’s perfect all, All the colours now make sense Through winter, summer, fall   And even if they don’t, we have A painting of our broken times Nectar, fragrance lost and gone Left behind the petalled rhymes   A western breeze blows them all The flowers are all free, To be born again, anew afresh To be someone else’s memory…   1 st October’22 ...

    All the songs we never sung, Were written with love, perhaps long ago, In un-creased pages, stored with care Waiting for the perfect sun to glow   All the notes we never hummed, Were tuned with the best of you and me So soothing to burnt heart and soul Broken cages, all set free   But the perfection stayed in sheaves of hope Neatly boxed and shelved and stored, No voice imperfect gave them life - Like an empty river without a ford   Perhaps, if you could right the notes all wronged, And sing even with a raspy voice, The imperfect stars of dusk would tell The brightest sun was never a choice   Perhaps, if I could fold and crease and mark The albums that I saved instead This world would have more songs to sing, And all this music would not fade…   21 st September, 2022      

  The dark shroud wraps us all In gasps of breathlessness We look up in choking eyes And pray And the tears float up in the night sky Like wisps of hopelessness And singe the clouds With day   From the pores pour Streams of starlight And in those spangles, peace comes Without the slightest fight Then you understand the wonders Of a starry spangled night…

  The rest of the world Melts and drips as in Dali’s art - Here a vanished soul, there a dissipated heart Sulking away in April’s rage Everyone playing their broken part   The only glimmer brighter Than this parching hot summer’s day – The Golden showers, as if they say, Look at us, we contain the sun And hence we are in mirthful play   Unscathed by dust of a gasping loo, The empty heat gets them to glow, Shimmering scales of the seasons’ flow But who has time for burning hues, A today lost in a tomorrow   Yet, tomorrow when the world calms down (A different shower heals in turn), One busy soul may stop to run, And ask, were there not few colours here? But the golden showers long left the sun…

As if, the clouds would drift From the Airport Control Tower crew In a modern dystopian version Of yesterday’s Meghdoot written anew   Knowing perhaps, I would sit there alone, Watching clouds broodier than me, Drifting past, going beyond Into the invisible hall of melancholy   Floor 13, in this newfound exiled land of mine I, in my bitter-sweetness looked out Staring – at the worlds above and far away Lost in despair, dismay, doubt   Until I looked down like a satrap snob Upon the peasants of my kingdom land Urchins dancing in the rain, Yet somehow, a joy that only they could understand   I descended from Swarga to the Martya lands As in another one of Vishnu’s dream Drenched in a second from head to toe, The rains falling like a cascade stream   That day, the city woke up from its sepia tones And seemed livelier than a marionette play It was there in the drenched cesspool of the lands You could see the ...

  Sakura season burst one day In a balmy scent of spring As more than winter thawed and dripped Perhaps deep within   Pastel soft, purpled and pink, Beneath the pensive blues Melting the moods of melancholy In the last of frozen hues   In the breath of a single, northern wind The blossoms came and went, Seen by a handful, lonesome eyes For which perhaps they were meant   The unseen eyes did forlorn cry, Why did they go so soon? Petalled wings glide like a swarm One hurried afternoon   But for those who saw, all time was stilled And nothing left to chance, As Sakura’s spring bloomed and died, Eternity in a glance…   07 th August. 2022   As a chilly winter limps away, first signs of spring arrived as cherry blossoms seem to have blossomed hurriedly - this afternoon, I looked them in their eyes and an entire evening passed away…

  Evocation in those enigma eyes, I wonder, whatever did you see - The rise of canvas on these walls? Colours to rule all eternity?   Hundreds of years that carved these rocks In ochred walls that silent fell, Alive, yet if only you could come to life What raspy stories would you tell?   Would you whisper jewels on your grace? Sapphire, emerald sheathed in gold, Or would you speak of nirvana cells Before the grime and dirt and mould   That bracelet, necklace, turban green Did they come from Scythian lands? Will our tainted ears even understand The peals of your cymbal hands?   You avert all gaze, we mortal souls Are not meant to hear your speech, Perhaps in hallowed walls of time, Renunciation it is, you teach   The sangha long has left these hills, It is a wonder that you stayed, For those who can, there’s a lot to hear In the words you never said…   06 th August, 2022   Inspired by...