Clouds in the valley...

  And every time, there’s emptiness I look to the Southern Cross, That, there’s kings as well, by mortals us Staring at their loss   To lose it all, you ever had And move to distant skies Some keep staring with their lonely eyes Others, turn to stars all wise   We struggle all for thousand years Bereft of poor a home, So much we see but its emptiness In the parsecs that we roam   Trishanku stares, He knows it all The passion in these tears, Exiled ‘tween heaven and earth Now for a million years   Were those stars enough? The Universe? Was it worth all left behind? In the nebula of your eternity Was there a truth to find?   I don’t know the starlight you have seen I don’t know what you’d say All I know is from loneliness In the years I’ve been away   That, despite the trials and quests we have Despite the laurels won, Despite the trillions in the Milky Way There is a single sun   ...

I wake up before sunrise- a first in perhaps months. I crawl out of my tent to find the ground wet with dew – outside, beyond the tent lies a black, brooding body of water yet to come alive with the sparkle of light, while the sounds of the animal kingdom are gradually on the rise, signifying the day has already begun. I shiver in the morning cold but somehow make my way to the lake’s edge as the eastern sky begins to illuminate with the promise of the rising sun. It rises slowly from behind the hills bordering Lake Lyell and floods the world with warmth in no time, thawing the vestiges of night. The world is suddenly transformed into a beautiful place – green meadows sprawling all around a sapphire jewel of a lake, cotton candy clouds of mist gambolling on the ground on the other side of the lake, slowly vaporising with the heat of the morn, as galahs, lorikeets, rosellas and black cockatoos chirp around in large numbers. The sky changes colours very quickly from light purple to pink ...

  If you ever walk In midnight rains In the dark Of a no moon night, Remember - I’ll wait behind To show the way In a flicker of little light   No lighthouse it be, Just a flame of lamp To burn through Those hours in black But just enough, To show there is A way for you To turn, and come back   The rains won’t stop, They never do, But if you see behind Perhaps far behind You’ll see the glasses Stained aglow   And a fireplace warmth In your ember mind   If you retrace Your steps and return You’ll find yourself Perfectly dry, Warmed by the flame That finally sleeps From a teardrop lone Left in your eye…   17 th Nov’23          

  There is that happiness, sunlight bright That makes you smiling glad, And then, there is happiness, Filtered through the fractus clouds That only makes you sad.   It was the latter joy I found today Wrapped in a hundred hue, In Spring-filled azaleas And rhododendrons Hid in the Mountains Blue   So many colours in His palette of joy Even white had many a tone And yet, this canvas that comes Once a year Makes this heart to mourn   So much happiness once in a while Is sometimes much to take, That feeling of emptiness when You stumble on a truth and find Everything else is fake   Melancholy hides in that truest joy It bleeds your heart to smile And only in pain You’ll find your peace Once you’ve given up all awhile   It is in that surrender sweet That peace blooms in a million way Some find it in the winter rains, Or in summer’s clouds of indigo Others – in the rhododendrons’ sway   ...

Here, in these lower hills, Glacial lakes are none, But man has tried his hand and dammed A jewelled blue in turn.   Hemmed by emerald woods of pine Coots and crakes abound But when I close my eyes, I hear Hums of a distant sound   Of lapping waves of a lake afar In the mountains home I left, These hillside tears, at least unite My soul that feels so cleft   I wake anew and give a smile As sunshine wraps the hills Where once I’d scorn this trivial range Today, my heart - with joy it fills   That there’s at least a mountain range So close this much to town, Hills so full of life although There’s no snow on their crown   The lake whispers, this much’s enough There’s pines on hills and ridge, And lakes and rhododendrons’ spring That make a memory bridge   To the distant lands - abode of snow For which the heart will mourn - Until then, these hills have love, And shade for the pilgrim lone… ...

Scores of hands, plastered in time, A signpost - of all who passed this ridge, We, amazed onlookers, only stare As we walk this sandstone time, a bridge   Red and ochred, prints of palm Here, in this land of the Darug clan Now, what remains are hidden signs - This mountain too was conquered by man   And I wonder - how every palm is a story lone Of a rambler in these hills of blue But wherefrom they came, where did they go How I wish those tales were captured too   Sometimes, perhaps, if you are in luck You may see the ribbon of time rewind, There, an artist of the Mountains’ muse Leaving red a mark behind   Spitting from his teeth in stain, One more mark, this was their land, For thousands of years, before we came But will we ever understand?   He looks at us, in chagrin, shame And finds no hope in our future eyes, He hastens - let at least his mark remain A truth in times of a million lies   So th...

  …and every day, at 8 o’clock The world for me would stop, I’d strain to see La tour Eiffel – Rather, just the tower top   But that was good enough – it was Requited, timeless love, Shimmering stars in mortal lands Reflecting stars above   There she’s be at dusky 8, Come rain or storm or snow, Sparkling with a million lights, In gilt and gold, aglow   Shining spangles, Paris sky Bokeh of hope alight, To make me smile - For you, this much I can always stand and fight   And all the homesickness there be Would melt in amber lights, And timeless peace would fall upon Cite’s silent nights   In a place with dreamy lights like these, How could you not love and cry? So much that years have passed, and still I yearn and smiling sigh     That the city was not a soul alone, She was an emotion, A universe of a thousand muse, The lights – her strongest sun   A lighthouse in the darkest...