Inviting death

you tell me that on a whim you invited death on google search and received religious instruction from multiple sources and links and that it was not actually a desire to end the journey but a call to the dead to answer whichever way they could the unanswered questions of existence it was more like standing on the balcony and asking the predawn darkness what does this all mean the lightning and the thunder and the silence the dream and its unravelling; the unfinished story of man and progeny the faceless ancestors who left these words to remember them by, maybe speak through us of the beauty and warts of the face they had seen and want us to see --- the dead answer through the living; this rain falling quietly is telling us life is not one man's burden to be borne alone.

Existence trail

 

You have to prove you lived

Here long enough to show

You are not from across the border.

How do we know this is your wife?

She is, unfortunately, for the last 70 years.

Do you have photo proof of wedding?

We didn't take any in those days for fear

Of shortening life and she didn't complete Schooling to secure a leaving certificate.

She doesn't have a birth document too.

Why don't you speak to me in Hindi?

This is my place and I speak my language.

Oh, then come tomorrow with someone

Who speaks mine if you want this done.

November

The newspapers are put away

After a cursory look at headlines

For they are bearers of bad news

With the government asking us

To trace paper trails gone cold

But they can be put to other uses

And fetch useful cash when sold,

The weather reports on television

Are much more heartening as they

Forecast more rain and even a cyclone

That will probably blow us all away;

The artificial flowers in the vase bring

Colour to the room and ask little back

They do not move with the seasons

Defy time, unchanging in their corner,

Siblings post readymade messages

Of affection and evergreen memories

On smartphones but remain remote

With little to say when they are called,

Perhaps they are afraid of reviving ties

That death, fast approaching, will sever

The November sun is cool like the moon

Invites the feet out for a walk past trees

That have withstood storms and summers.

No return

We left because we thought

Leaving was best when staying

Would mean dying in despair

And waiting looked like endless

With no one coming today or 

Tomorrow though it was said

It would happen when it was right

We could not wait to find out for we

Didn't know who was coming, whether

To free us or tell us to wait some more

For the true one who follows the other;

Leaving was best for in moving, the mind

Lost its imaginary mooring and the feet

Learnt the virtue of moving, not waiting

Indefinitely for time to move and change;

In movement there was freedom for there

Was no destination and no threat of return.

Someone else's sun

Sunlight falls on the coffee mug

I am drinking from and my hands,

The fingers are red held against it,

I am too sleepy to rise from the mat,

The November sun, after the rain

Has stopped, is cuddly warm 

To keep this moment is difficult for

The heat rises and the day is on

With the noise of vehicles and horns;

The children are still sleeping after

Burning their phones through the night

Talking to clients and bosses all the time

The work seems more talking than doing;

They wake to someone else's sun, sleep

During his night and rarely get to see 

Their own sunrises or their own sunsets ---

Do not know when the western sun will set.

Need only to be still

Time hides inside the mind

Making the feet look for it

In places they have long left

The landscape has changed

And erased the landmarks

That marked our growing up

The house we cannot rent out

For fear of losing it to tenants

Who are too possessive to leave 

Remains locked with all its

Furniture and memories inside

From the wall hanging gifted

By a friend called to heaven early

God exhorts us to only be still

And leave the battle to him,

From time to time whenever

We can, we return and relive

The years we cannot relive,

Sit staring at the hill looming

In the distance and still carrying

Footprints of sky-clad renunciates ----

Our coming and going count for little

As the time that counts keeps chipping away.

Together

At first light birds find their voice again

After the long silence forced by night

For me tottering out of forgetful dreams

Into the new day the chorus from the trees

Seems a gracious greeting from kindred

To one who can fly about without wings

Bring down white clouds to soften nests

Make the moon glow brighter with praise

Let the rainbows linger long after sunset 

At home both on earth and in the sky 

Revelling in the respair of the present 

Keeping dreams warm till they are hatched

Teaching fledglings that they have to fly

But can't fly forever for they have to roost;

The sun begins to cast its shadows

The colours return to the colourless

The streets are back to their cacophony ----

For a while at least the other was together.

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.

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.