Clouds in the valley...

  Spring arrives, And in a single blink - The meadowy Farm gets washed - In a sea of clovers Dancing in white and blushing pink   The carpet of flowers Reminds of vales I have never been, They call me, but I have to wait The weeds in the meadow For now are all, that I will have seen   They are no brahma kamal , But the clovers bring peace, A bridge to the past that never was, And link to the future – Of alpine dreams that never cease   It is my pensive place – A spark of the past that ebbs and flows; Left behind a Valley Now faraway, this meadow large Is all that I could have happily chose   Do I then love this green For it brings back to us the mountains' lore? The clovers sway in the windy day, You, green grass and indigo skies What need there is, to ask for more? Inspired by walks to the historic Farm in Sydney, remnant of the earliest farms established in a fledgling colony and the birthplace of Austr...

  I see red blooms in the morning mist, In Illawarra’s shaded slope, This fine cold, the mizzled skies And the flowers grow with hope   Denizens of the highland homes, The hills are where they thrive, But not just they, my memories too In the escarpment comes alive   For I have seen them in a chapter past, In the Himalayan whites of snow, In the hills of Shingba, Varsey where They shine in their own alpenglow   And spring becomes a palette mix, Bubbling with new-born streams, Untamed yaks in sanctuaries Awash with rhododendron dreams     Sleet drapes the reds and pinks Yet, a warbler flits with joy A fire-tailed sunbird seeks some wine Awestruck stands a vagrant boy   Awestruck still today am I, Just as it was all yesterday, That my dormant dreams have woken up In these emerald hills of faraway   To remind as if that time has passed I hear a kookaburra’s laughing sound Yet in the peta...

  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 ...