Petrichor

During the rain break I hear the infant

Next door speak the language of cats

I have not seen its face or eyes or smile

Neighbours have to hide their newborns,

Till they are robust enough for outdoors

May the bundle of joy grow up to see

A world where touch or sight won't taint

And dreams don't have to be suicidal ----

Between chores I come to the window

To see if the drizzle has started again

A cloud the colour of snow rears up like

A revelation, catches the sun on its head

Turns dazzling white, holds its pose ----

It is wise to befriend the nonverbal

The sky, the petrichor and downpour 

Even the silent deity that speaks in dreams.

Movement

The stars are moving away

From the moving clouds,

All movement mesmerises

Stillness too if it is the sky

Or mind when no thought arises,

The stork is a study as it awaits

The chosen fish at its feet

Movement could be death

Stillness could be death too

When the predator is too close,

Time is predator and prey

Movement is distance, is time

How far is the same as how long

We find ourselves in the same place

Did we move at all or chose to be still?

River

I want to see my river

Be a river again 

Stand on its north bank

Watch it flow past me

With the temple towers

Watching me from the south

I want to just watch it

Without the myths, 

Without the words

Without the past

Without the future

Watch myself being swept away.

Redeemer

It cannot get any more bizarre

Than this, in the wonder that's Bharat

For a lordship admits to seeking divine 

Counsel for a verdict in a case

The minor deity was party to,

At a crime review meeting in Ram rajya

White monks perform a bhajan as

Young police officers clap to the beat,

Closer home in the land of Periyar

An actor wearing the neta hat equates

The fascists and those battling them ----

Minions fight to sing the praises of the puppet

And ask why he cannot be the new redeemer.

The mind is not old

When the feet turn unwilling

You can talk all you want

But cannot make them walk

Like they used to and take you

Wherever you want them to go

You remind them of the trek

In the pathless hills cliimbing

Through shrub and rock racing

With those taking the beaten path

Were these the same feet now

Unable to shuffle to the nearest shop?

The mind remembers the early morning

Dip in the Ganga in the coldest month

The body shivers now though swathed

In thick sweaters and shawls in a city

That is considered warm by the young

Even during its yearly cyclonic weather

The mind refuses to grow old even when

The eyes see the world through a haze

As silhouettes and shapes and shadows.

Nature

Hunger is the clock we live by

Its chimes we cannot ignore

Sensuality is a secret pleasure

We cannot tell the world

Where does this sense of exile

Come from when we have no home

To go back to or recall with love?

We cannot take refuge in Nature

As it too turns the rooted to refugees

All of us are migrants from somewhere

Like birds, fleeing winters or worse

But we cannot go back like them,

It is good to know the sun will burn out

And even the earth we cannot call home.

Wordlessly

Tired of the television chatter on

Low pressure, troughs, depression

Upper air circulation, wind speeds

Flooding of roads, traffic snarls

Disruption of routine, unplanned infra

Explosion of population, party politics

I switch it off to go watch the rain fall

Wordlessly ravishing, like an act of mercy.