Clouds in the valley...

  Too many dandelions in my backyard, Yellow flowers tall, No space for weeds in my garden On this side of the wall   I had to mow them down, the weeds But my daughter asks me why, Not roses they are at all, I say But my answer made her cry   ‘They are still flowers, aren’t they? Perfumed they maybe none, But don’t they add the brightly hues Yellow as the sun?’   Oh bright the many blooms of day Dancing with the grass, Yellow green, what a pair Beauty in the mass!     ‘And look at them thereafter, Fluffy balls of whites, One raspy breath of wind will launch A thousand feathery kites’   ‘Do you really need to tag them then, As a weed upon the green? Joyous flowers dancing all Forlorn but still a queen’   What wondrous ways to see the world, I cannot help but smile, Let all the dandelions survive Mile after earthy mile   The eyes with which you see the earth Gives us hope a...

  ‘Why do you seek pumpkin flowers?’ My friend asked, wondering why ‘Fritters…is that it?’ He wouldn’t understand, so I nodded - a terse reply ‘They make zucchini fritters here, Can those not suffice?’ Any replacement works when you are removed, Survival, existence – the way of the wise   Deep inside, you know It’s neither taste of fritter or flower; Rather, the flavour of memories Of childhood days, long ago and very far   Nothing left to reap and sow, A poor man’s food makes a rich man now….   28 th December, 2022

Years ago, in my ambles in the hills, I met a traveller on a pass, Not in search of ice white peaks Or even solitude, like few of us But in the mountain quest to seek The elusive brahma kamal bud, No, not for commerce or botany His quest in rain and mud   Why then? I asked him on that day ‘So that I don’t find the bloom at all’ Seeing my surprise, he smiled, ‘So that I keep walking in these mountains tall’ The flower that blooms a single night In the wait of an entire year, And on its pilgrimage trail, a soul With neither yearning nor a fear     What was then, the purpose in those endless trails? Not to find, neither to seek But just to see you make your prints On an ice-melt stream or creek Perhaps, in the brahma kamal’s trail, he sought The mountains’ blessing in a very heavy odd And then one day in heaven’s steps - Find flower, man and god…

  The rickety bus chugs along, The clogged veins in the City of Joy, Hazra, Rashbehari passes by, While lost is a dreamy-eyed college boy He yearns for the space, the skies and the seas The cities in the books he roam, But one deep breath of alstonia, And he smiles of the land that is always home   October’s Chhatim, as Durga beckons, Whenever else would you rather bloom? That timeless scent of an autumn dusk Rich enough to hide all gloom – The flowers usurp in all their white The city’s grime, the noise, the dirt In the rhythm of the dhaaki’s beat All you smell is the city’s mirth   That umbilical cord severs not Matters not wherever you go, Every autumn, the heartstrings tug The chhatim blooms and time runs slow; If you step there and smell that autumn’s dusk You’ll find that dreamy boy even today, A bit in you, and a bit in me – Smiling in a flower’s whitened way…   18 th December, 2022

  In Temi’s tea, a sea of green Looks to the mighty Kanchenjunga; While Rangeet runs far below, In his eternal quest for Teesta The cherries bloom in Autumn, The prayer flags all year round, While joins the crispy winter sun The lost with all the found   Lost, this vagrant soul returns To the silence of the hills, And in a cup of blackened tea His emptiness, he fills The hills attach to a cup of tea, Something to take along, Though the real peace is left behind In the silent mountains’ song   Now every time, a cup is brewed Even if miles away, Happiness rises with the steam, As if the vale clouds say – That wherever you are, what be your day In tea leaves used or new, If you can find a memory Can you lose the mountains inside you?   17 th December, 2022   Lines written in fond memory of the Temi Tea Gardens, Sikkim, where I was blessed with the views of the snow clad Himalaya, crowned by the Kanchenjun...

Keep the memories, They don’t come up very often these days - Not because there is no petrichor Nor paler is the   sunset blaze   Just that, the pages in our daily diaries Have all become too full, Perhaps a scribble here, a squiggle there, But then, who do we try to fool?   How about then, cleaning the dust Off the musty notebooks few? Stored in a shadowy corner; There keep the memories, can you?   I know you’ll find a dogeared page Left blank, a long time back Bookmarked in days when you were white And I was dreamy black   Could you see the emptiness then Though starry was the Milky Way? Did you know we’ll see the sunlight pour In the midnight of a wintry day?   When I would ask to ink and store A shard of memory light, And you would smile, for none would have A pen with which to write…   14 th December, 2022

  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...