Understanding

Then the river

Plunged

And our nudity

Laughed.



Afterwards, the tree shadows

Slept on the banks

inside each other



Thoughtless.



And the night

Interrogated our dreams.







The morning woke from the fog

and the sun

from the river



And smiled

indulgent.

Passing

1

Streetlights wrapped in fog

The pavement mistakes nine for zero

Tall in dreadlocks and jeans

She passes

I turn to see her recede

The appointment of our previous loves

Lost in a turbulent crossing

poetry of my youth

I let her pass.

            2

In the auto queue

I do not understand the exchange of eyes

The breadth of her shoulders quiver

Her fingers are restless on her friend’s

and behind her back her fingers

speak in Tamil

Inside, her face flicks a turn,

and again

And my fingers seek darkness

At our destination

I pay my fare

She waits

DARJ - Oct, 2011

You talk of turmeric dust sunlight on fir trees

and I let you tell me once more

those old tales, of month long holidays

through winding lanes of cloud crossings,

of dew on your brow.



Darj was a fairy tale of infant clouds

coming in through our windows.

The discovery of chilled sweet milk

that I knew instantly as ambrosia.

Of the Glenary’s aroma that lifted one suddenly

on a sandpapered summer sunset at Connaught Place

from the anguish of loss of another day of youth.



71 took it to the promise of a life-style ad.

In fragile blue and white

overseen by the Gold Thigh Mountain

as that gold-winged sunset from Glenary’s.

(Imagined?) Were you there as her then?

Such would be youth and love ever after



We look for the steep lane

from the station to the Rest House

to the then remote south

in our separate memories of separate years.

Is this one it? Or this?

Hot milk and jalebis in foggy mornings

are probably sepia now. As we know

the day long toy train from NJP is.



Those old tales of memory finding

a place as it had left four decades ago,

(even in parts)

I begin to believe.

NOSTALGIA

A squirrel moves a wall to black and white and the electric clock. A girl’s head flits through a square of darkness between bare bricks on the first floor. A half window, boned, leaning. A creeper hammocks on the TV cable on a pearl and graphite sky.

Take me home.



Girls wear skirts again. Pujas in three weeks. I look for him with a shadow on the upper lip and yell, “Your mum won’t suffer your life.”



On the way to office, it looks like rain.

Freeing Love

You shall not cheat. I will

not be judged by Sahu the grocer.



I do. Not on earth or water

or gauzy winds in azure skies



But I do. So there.

My open upturned palms

I can look at you now

I can look at you

now in this winter of the hashish fragrance of the chhatim tree

That is everywhere.

That has swept away the cotton smell of my mother

And the milky scent of my woman

And the spunky odour of the sea

That trails the dark women of my madness



I can look at you now

That the silk cotton tree is naked



And through its branches



I can see

your crystalline solitude.

THE FOOL

He tells me

He knows the street from the stage.

He is not all pose.



Yes, he catches fire sometimes,

Once in a while,

Ignited by a certain darkness of skin

Of the steaming undergrowth

Of tropical forests



Or a mind



Or a face that looks like a mind of a certain kind

With an affinity for crests of waves.

And the lack of it



For things.



And, yes,

He is unable to surrender to that fire

Or lift a finger to quench it



Which has left him so rare

That he is unable to sink



Or float.



He tells me

We are not what we seem



For we are seen by light





And that



Is constantly



Changing.

ID

He tells me

He knows the street from the stage.

He is not all pose.



Yes, he catches fire sometimes,

Once in a while,

Ignited by a certain darkness of skin

Of the steaming undergrowth

Of tropical forests



Or a mind



Or a face that looks like a mind of a certain kind

With an affinity for crests of waves.

And the lack of it



For things.



And, yes,

He is unable to surrender to that fire

Or lift a finger to quench it



Which has left him so rare

That he is unable to sink



Or float.



He tells me

We are not what we seem



For we are seen by light





And that



Is constantly



Changing.

Forest Dreams

Dappled sunlight of the fragrant forest

measures the highs and lows

Filled in dust coloured leaves.

Sentinel tree trunks lost in lofty dreamy winds.

You begin to get undone



You let things be



You will the shadow of a tiger in every bush

A bird call takes your mind away

to pubertal breezes of love.



You would sleep that afternoon of squirrels,

curled in the after-love of trees,

to whispered ancient stories

floating hillock to swaying hillock.



But then the unseen ocean

Sweeps you to your counting table

To balance your books

of duties

And desires.



Do you dare?