Dreams

It is dreamers who change reality

The one who imagined landing

On the moon took the first steps

For others to make the giant leap

Do not stop with prayers, for god

Helps those who help themselves

To show the way to help others --

The man or woman who dreamt

Of what lay beyond the horizon

Must have made the first catamaran

Setting off Man on his endless journey

That travels both ways and finds gold

On distant planets and coaxes

Clouds to shed gold on fallow land ---

Dreams have a way of coming true

So dream till you become the dream.

A second time

If you were old and headed

For where everyone old is

Certain to arrive not in any

Particular order and living

In a street like this where

The elderly with offspring

All settled abroad have 

Settled for their last years

The arrival of ambulances

To carry off someone who

Had a fall in brahma muhurtam

Is not very uncommon and

Sends your heart racing with

Thoughts of that dreaded rendezvous ----

More than dying, leaving the other behind

Or being left behind is more terrifying,

Who wants to be orphaned again?

Switch

The mind flips its pages

Comes back to the same

Unpleasant memories

It would rather forget

On sweaty summer nights

The personal doom scrolling 

Of the past is intense

To get past the time of the sick ascent

To the heavenly valley of clouds

Is as arduous as a steep trek

Find me a switch for good memories

Especially when I meet old friends

Teach them to flip one too so that

When we part we want to meet again.

Decoys

My feet touch the earth

Only a few times a week

When I leave my perch

Many floors up in the air

To shop or take a walk

I have a ringside view

Of the arasan canopy

Now so thick with new leaves

That hide again the apartments

Across the hectic street.

We trooped out this week

To the polling station 

Quite early to beat the rush

New decoys have come

To lure the young astray

To whitewash the enemy

Did we beat them again?

Trumpeting spring

The pink trumpet trees on either side

Of the road mitigate your winter

Of bare head and conscious breath 

The eyes mist over at the rare blossoms

Heralding spring in soft tones over

The discordant notes of the traffic

The eyes that have seen will carry

The flowers home and place them

In vases that know only artificial flowers

Neither fragrant nor wilting

But offering some quiet to the city-stressed

The neighbourhood konrai is in bloom too

Blazing with its yellow fire next to

The palash yet to light its orange flames

The grandfather points out the new season

To the little one tracking the fleet-footed cat

Time seems to be in no hurry, to light your fire.

Touching rain

The morning grows dark like evening

The clouds gathering from nowhere

Crowd out daylight just like that

It seems you had almost forgotten 

What rain looked like or smelt like 

Or felt like the way

You gazed at it like someone from land

Where it is a rarity and treated like divinity

You had forgotten what it is to feel holy

What sacred looks like and only revering 

Lifeless idols made holy by touchy priests

Who pretend to be holier than your god

To watch and stretch your hand out for

A cup of cloud, sky, sea and wind is

To partake of a time you can't keep.

April

It's April and the bodhi tree

Is in leaf, the old quietly leaving

For the new to arrive, with many

Branches still looking bare and even

The regular crows roosting there 

Keeping away in the mid-day sun;

You keep checking every day to see

The green leaves peeping out 

And growing larger and greener 

With the sheen more brilliant by the hour

The boys flying kites sometimes find 

Their first few flights of the season

Crashing here irretrievably as lost time ---

The drama of death and resurrection 

Enacted every year before your eyes

Is strangely reassuring as your steps falter

And you foresee your own time stopping.