Nowhere

There we are when we are not there

The doors open and close like flowers

Which know when to and when not to 

Against the wall we can see the rain fall

There are times when we want it to come

And times when we don't, like children

Weather keeps us guessing, whether or not

A giant fire is lit atop once volcanic hills

We have made a fetish of flames and fury

When the god comes down from the hills

He comes up with mundane demands

No one can ask him profound questions

On the meaning of life or what death holds

We can decipher dreams as nature's call

Nothing more as we go about our journey

Seeking directions on the way to nowhere.

Till we can't

Don't take Gibran's word for it

Go back to find you cannot go back

The television visuals show the streets

Of my native town flooded and my feet

Feel the water flowing around them

There were two theatres we frequented

My father and I, to escape home weather

In the square opposite the famous temple

Rationalists thundered against gods, myths

I remember the priest asking me to move

Throwing the flowers and ash at my hand

Careful not to touch, to avoid  any pollution,

Nothing has changed there or elsewhere

The god of music himself cannot cross

The lines of caste and get nearer the shrine

The past draws borders we cannot cross

Only the memories of places we can own

The land and times we still carry with us

Exist no more out there; when we go back

We find out for ourselves we can't go back 

But can remember as well as we can,

Till we can't remember even the way back.

Flames of sorrow

Festivals are shadowed

By thoughts of the dead

When lamps are lit to mark

The defeat of darkness

The flames rekindle sorrow

Over those who have left ---

Father woke up lifeless that day

Days before the Deepam night

The rain came to mourn him,

When the last rites were over

The grey skies so burst out

The city and suburbs were flooded;

On phone brother recalls how

Friends and relatives struggled

To reach home from the funeral

We share recent dreams where

He reappeared and I tell him of one

Where he was lighting these lamps

And tasking us with tending them ---

Dreams bring back to us loved ones

Death took away and refused to return.

Kafka on the tree

Kafka is Czech for crow

I learn from the Murakami novel,

It is tempting to give our dark friend

From the neighbouring jamun tree

And demanding attention at odd hours

The Metamorphosis author's name;

These birds were once used on ships

To help sailors find their way to land

Hence their cry also denoted shore;

In Hindu mythology ancestors turn

Into Kafkas on days of remembrance

New myths are sought to be made

As actors seek to metamorphose

Into some avatar who like the black 

Cowherd-god can lead holy cows 

To pastures guarded by myth-busters

Another day

The July evening after the rain

Is bathed in a blue incandescence

Before the lingering light gives way 

To the relative darkness of the city night

The imminent death of another day 

That will never come back but leave us

Another step closer to our last day or night

Cannot be looked at without a sense of loss.

When was time our ally that we ever went

To sleep, looking forward to the next day

When our hungers were sure to be sated

And we would take a step closer to the dream

That we told no one lest it did not come true?

Scrawl

The spotless white wall

Cannot bear its nothingness

Craves a child's scrawl

....