Weather

Spring brings the trees to flower

Blows their dust about till the lungs

Inhale the pollen and find it disagreeable

The weather cannot be wished away

Every year it is warmer than before

Colder than last year though if we could

Choose we will opt for the chiller months

We scan the papers for monsoon news

And smile when we see El Nino is ending

The cloudburst last time is just a memory

Between floods and drought we know

What to choose and what to wish for

Between man and other species who

Will the Earth want to keep, not let go?

Good morning

This could be the day when

Miracles unfold before us

Without our seeking them

All the birds in the tree have

Left looking for their first food

After waking us with their panic

Last night i saw a family shifting

With their ceiling fans and furniture

To an unseen home of uncertainties

I look at the sky and wish there were

Snowcapped mountains looking back

At us sending shivers down our way

We can't stay here but we don't want to leave 

Though it is time or just about time to

Look back with love at all who have left.

Don't wake me

Dreams are not something to lose

Sleep over even when they are as

Strange as fiction that mines minds

A king put courtiers to death for

Not correctly interpreting a dream

Which apparently foretold a famine

Mine have not been as momentous

But I keep losing my way in a place

As familiar as a workplace or home

An exam I have not prepared for

Still wakes me up though I have

Now left that frightful world behind

Let no dream wake me up before dawn

Rather let me wake up from life itself.

Disappearing

Let's not court silence

It's not outside us

When the desires subside

It appears quietly like the moon

We have diappeared from places

We have not been to again

The body vanishes little by little

Starting from hair to the ovaries

Death is a kind of disappearing

An absence where we have been

We will be found by those 

Who have lost us as we will those 

We have lost ourselves.

Dreams

Lost things are found in dreams

Then lost again when we wake up

Grandfather's pet dog that vanished

Into the sea when we went to immerse

His ashes I saw again following him

Along the beach not even stopping

To nose around, afraid to lose his master

Where is the one of hunting lineage

That fled the house on Deepavali

Unable to withstand the firecrackers

And never could find his way back?

Dreams are halfway worlds between

Life and death we keep on visiting

And we keep on coming back from,

Sometimes unhappy we cannot stay back.

When it rains

Raindrops on cartops 

Catch a free city ride

Clouds cross puddles 

As the sky watches

It is difficult to tell 

If the rain or the child

Is happier to see the other 

When it rains

Mother is most remembered

For the fritters she conjured up

For her last wish

I did not fulfil

Because I was away.

Time

The evergreen song playing

On the television tells me

Time is running out for me

As well as for my peers,

An hourglass metaphor

Has survived the coming

Of watches and clocks

Once living near rail tracks

The passing trains marked

The express passage of time

But my train was yet to arrive;

This ancient tree is in no hurry

Its seasons arrive and leave leisurely

When the gentle breeze ruffles it 

It dances in quiet pleasure

When the monsoon wind seizes it

It fights with spirit, doesn't fall;

When we walk around the temple city

We do not know how many layers

Of time we walk on, what buried secrets

Lie under our feet, trapped like genies ----

It's time to say goodnight, not goodbye.