Meditation

Will gazing at the wall
Make it go away?
The paint brush pause
Over the child's scrawl?
The mob's daggers be shamed
By folded hands?
The builder skirt
A peepal tree?
The house spare space
For the sparrows?
Pious feet keep away
From temples
Not everyone can enter?
The eyes turn away
From the outstretched hand
Not remembering the starving nights
When one woke up dreaming of food
Lay staring at the wall
Wishing it would go away?

Waiting

I watched a white cloud
Float silently overhead
Making the sky bluer
Than it was
I kept looking up
For the next
Even letting my bus pass
Did the poet
Who lived here sometime
Stand at this stop
Watching the sky like this
Looking at the mango tree
Across the road
Wanting to see
A parrot or two alight
And suddenly worrying
If he had enough
For the to and fro fare
And for a tea, to spare

The wall

A wall not seen as a wall
Is the one difficult to pull down
It was the god's bull
That was blamed for being in the way
Blocking the view of the devout outsider
It was hailed as a miracle
That faith could move stone
And not hearts
A wall could even be a veil
Keeping eyes out
Keeping eyes in
Keeping the horse
From thinking of meadows
It often dreams of
Hatred is a wall
That is called a different name
Along national borders.

Now

I can now look at you
Without any longing
When the eyes
Are no longer fire-flies
The cascading tresses
Having thinned to a fizz
The sinuous walk
Turning mock
The bewitching smile
Gone a while
Both now level
Caricatures of ourselves
Almost where we started
Empty-handed for all the travel
Having seen only the same
Pretending they were not the same
The feet now weary of leaving
Knowing there can never be any leaving.

Just a mile away

When we missed
The last bus
To the village
Some miles away
We decided
To walk the distance,
It was a January night
Just right for young feet
To fall back on
The first transport
Only one knew the way
To our destination
And exactly how far it was,
We appointed him guide;
The trek extended into the night
As hamlet gave way to hamlet,
And agitated dogs gave chase,
Guards smoking cigars
And looking very much
Like nocturnal gods
Believed to toss
Anyone in their path
Stopped us on the borders
Questioning our wisdom
When the early morning bus
Would have been a better option
The lure of watching
Glow-worms on the velikathan
Drew 'you-city-fools' smiles
The journey seemed endless
Though the friend kept saying
"It's just a mile away"
Finally when we flopped
On our host's doorstep
We had walked ten miles;
When things do not go my way
I still say, "it's just a mile away"

Gloaming

It was as if morning light
Had missed a cue
Returned onstage before
Not after the night
Leaving everyone smiling
Happy to be bathed
In a yellow glow
Like seen in movies
Shot in hill stations
Everyone looked lovelier
Than they were
Like everyone would
When they were happy knowing
They were lovelier
Than they were
Like those who loved
And knew they were loved
And saw the world
In a twilight
That put off the night

Squirrel

It is after the room-mates
Have gone to sleep
After dinner, gossip,
Jokes and laughter
That the night turns sick
Voices from home
Despite the distance drift in
Father sitting in the front-yard
Asks mother if I have had my meals
While my sister misses no detail
Of what her classmates
Were up to in college
It is so like
A half-remembered dream
From a different life
That I know
The idyll is slipping away
And soon it can never be
It is like the squirrel
We nurtured like a child
During the storm
And abandoned when we left
The cyclone-prone town.