Anonymous

On the streets the camera

Watches the odd observer 

Stopping to watch the trees

In bloom and the flowers at

His feet, worn from walking

The observer is observed

The dog looks at the masked

Bespectacled man suspiciously

Could he be the dog-catcher or

Just the post-corona survivor

Guarding against the next wave?

The anonymous do not draw 

Crowds to an untimely death 

They go about their daily life

As peacefully as possible 

Do not dream of what is not

Possible or desirable or lasting

They are happy to just see

A butterfly on their way to work

And the moon shining when they

Come trudging home on tired feet.

No more wonderful

The evening sky holds its azure face long enough 

For even passersby in a hurry to stop

And throw a glance before night turns it into 

The dark shade meant for the melancholic 

Behind the tree the moon is more sensed than seen, 

Not many still look out for it when it arrives 

Leisurely like a beloved who knows one is worth 

Waiting for and will not be stood up

The little one in the next balcony is learning 

His first words and trying to name wonders 

No more wonders for us like the bird or the tree.

Two rainbows

You cannot go back

To the dream that woke you up 

When it was meant to wake you up 

The sky is adust like someone 

Woken up mid-sleep 

How would it be to be able 

To wipe it clean make it blue again?

What if there were two rainbows

Forming like yesterday and vanishing 

Before many could see it and wonder?

The clouds are moving taking the rain

Elsewhere giving the day back to the sun,

In the dream you were running late and not

Finding transport to your distant workplace

And when you managed to reach it there

Was some blinking robot in your place.

Hail Mary

Through the umbrella the rain

Drips on my head and does not

Mind falling on a balding pate

That does not look like growing

Back again for all the herbal oil

Smeared lovingly on it every day

I secretly wanted to get wet like

This, not enough to catch a cold

Yet enough to remember it by ----

I have run out of drops meant

To prevent dryness of the eyes

Brought on by endless gazing at

The virtual reality images

That take the mind away

From all that is falling off ----

I loftily look at all those taking

Shelter before wayside shops

The Mary shrine is all lit up for

Her weeklong festival close on

The heels of the Mari temple fete ---

I pray to both when I stir out

And when I come back unscathed

Not without wondering when it will be 

When I have to leave and never come back.

Fresh from the past

On a cloudy day the dysania

Is a given though the seatherny

Seems to suggest some days

Can be forgiven for their slowness

The distance of the native city

Vanishes and the feet stand by

The lake as the sun slowly rises

Making the heart feel happily warm

The childhood friend soon joins me

With his fishing tackle to spend hours

Catching sunlight and singing songs

That probably kept the wary fish away

Stern faces pop up now and then with

Gratuitous advice not to while away time

We laugh at them and time laughs with us

The feet return juvenescent and I am ready to

Enter the world with eyes fresh from the past.

Shading long-distance

The moon is being eaten by the earth

Or so it seems when its shadow

Takes away all the satellite's glow

In another city we returned home

Through almost deserted streets

From a movie during an eclipse

Had a meal against the neighbour's

Dire warnings and something else

Without any significant consequences

Tonight the slow-moving clouds cannot

Keep away and keep hiding the show

What shade is this, blood red or copper?

The flatness turns to spherical as my son

Keeps coming back to the balcony 

To capture on camera this cosmic line-up

The mythology of a monster ingesting

The full orb makes the spectacle more

Dramatic than it is but no less wondrous

Even when it is no more out of reach it is

As if we have now all made a landing there.

Tears are too human

The world keeps disappearing 

From me in little baby steps 

The child has grown up into

New times that I cannot enter

His room is full of music more

In step with the feet than the heart

The traffic races from stop to stop

In a pace faster than I would like

Destinations arrive too soon saving

Time I do not know what to do with

The distance grows and speeds increase

The slow feet cannot but be left behind

The garbage bins pile up with the useless

Machines are feted till they are outdated

Tears are frowned upon as too human

Night embraces all whose suns have set.

Liminal

The evening light is blue and black

Between day and night lingers the dusk

In a liminal place of a thousand sighs

What has been lost is more than a day

A love is buried again and mourned again

What can't be tugs once more at the heart 

A desire comes begging and is sent away

Amid all the noise of the traffic a sense of 

Death and silence hangs in the dusty air

The signal is red and comes with a hearteen

This is a time of timeless longing and ache

But we can't stop for long and lament

While waiting for the light to turn green

This pang of grief must be primordial

What the caveman felt when the sun set ---

The city picks up and flees into the night.