A Summer Evening Rain

 A death somewhere 
Some moments of shared grief
For today’s events, regrets elsewhere
For the dead, is death an unexpected relief?
For the living, a discontinuity over explained?
A person now a collection of memories, fraying yet sustained
In our collective conscious, revived and forgotten; rippled and dappled
Underneath a missing person in a human labyrinth
Unacknowledged unspoken fear of loss 
A loss is a loss, timely or untimely
Let it go in this downpour
The weight of the past hour
Riding atop the hill of cumulative angst
Carefully built carelessly crystallised molehill
Watch the rain dissolve it away, wash it to a puddle
The real and the imagined real, the inevitable
The late summer flowers, the dried leaves and the green leaves
The dust and the trash, the highs of the thermometer
The rain a discontinuity in this hot weather
A city is charming again, fear washed by belief
Somewhere sleep brings a temporary relief.


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Gulmohar Annuals

2014

The fierce passion, the loud expression

The gentle grace of confidence

An ode to the blazing sun

A red crown for summer

The glorious Gulmohar

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2012
Gleaming in the morning sun,
Washed clean of all dirt by first rain,
Gulmohars are abundantly gregarious,
Like a million parrots congregated.

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2011
Few come alive
In an Indian summer
As the fiery Gulmohar.
Bouquets of orange and red
Torches bright uninhibited
Flames of passion
Bedazzle the sun
Then the proud bask
In their own glory.
Cheerleaders of the season.

Spring 2014 in Bangalore

Spring arrives spilling clouds of colour in Bangalore
Tabebuias, pink and yellow, head turners galore
As if to balance the loud South American fluorescence
Jacarandas stand a profusion of purple elegance
The feathers of white and pink, delicate crowns of raintrees
Festive invite for the city, birds, butterflies and bees
Flamboyant street liners everywhere that seize and grab attention
Competing with the noisy politicians and campaign billboards of election
Wearing bohemian rockstar wigs, shaking out blossoms with each breeze
Circular carpets filling out on the ground beneath with each tease
Only to be swept away each morning, a waste of colourful distraction
And on the boughs above, some more buds open out to the morning sun
A season’s reminder to renew and refresh, to stop, stand and stare
Give in to your temptation, take pictures, post and share.
Another month and the branches will go go bald and bare.
The campaign will get louder, an incessant glare and blare.
March, the month to immerse in the moment, pause and march on.
One knows not what this election will hold for the future of this nation
Linger in the comfort of known, cleanse the anxious burden of past, suspend worry of the uncertain
For spring yields to summer year after year, and its delicious promise of the mango season.

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