The Gift by a passing cloud

 

Such killer June heat,

Sun greedy for a new fiery feat,

The wind doth burn,

Almost melting the fern.

A little swab of cloud

pitied life caught in smoldering shroud,

Thundered and struck a lightning note,

With its little waters it fought

a small garden’s thirst and pain,

Aha, a brief spell of rain

on a sunlit noon,

An unexpected boon,

Godsent sprinkle of water on a face

withering without moisture’s brace.

The cloud is very small,

But showers its waters all

and wets a little garden and its sunburnt flowers,

Bathes them with blessing showers.

As a cloud tiny

it may not make it all rainy

for all the land

and salvage the burning sand,

But it knows its duty

to the sun-singed beauty

in the yard

of a small-time bard,

It’s beautiful to see

a little rain among noon’s full glee,

The little cloud knows

it can’t thwart the fiery blows

to kill the fire,

but it can sire

optimism and raise hope

with its brief watery mope,

It drops a little message

with its brief watery passage

that I’m here for you,

Good times will come with night’s dew,

And the soil

writhing with pain and on boil

dances with life

among the fiery onslaught and strife,

Comes it back to life,

Its joy one can smell

even in this burning hell.

A small journeyman cloud

makes the entire sky proud

with its brief downpour on a sunlit noon

when the heat is at its peak in June,

And a poet in his small wet garden,

Joyful over this tiny divine pardon,

Soaks in the beauty of raindrops

and forgets life’s flops.

Moved on the cloud small

after giving its waters all,

After a thundering greeting it left

with airy dives deft.

The sage dispelling haze

 

Lynched by life’s rage,

All puzzled, shaky

and in the grip of debilitating daze,

I run around

and seek the help of a sage

living in a hut in the hills,

where many throng to get spiritual pills

after failures with materialistic bills.

The ascetic is all joy,

Says, come my beaten, bruised boy,

I tell him the story of my woes,

Show the empty rows

where I planted loving, caring seeds,

But ‘their’—the others—unfaithful deeds

undid my loving labor’s creeds.

Seeing me all lost,

smiled the kind host,

Gently he took me to a place,

Aha, paradise in full embrace,

Such a heavenly brace,

Trees, hills and sky’s blue,--

Nature’s pristine hue,

The beauty was spread out there

like an otherworldly layer,

Joyfully lit my eyes

far away from painful cries.

Then he pinched my earlobe,

Winced I with pain and sob,

The beauty instantly vanished,

All joy banished,

Though it was there still,

But I lost it due to my bitter pill.

Says the kindly sage,

dispelling my illusions and haze:

Other people and situations just are

as they are here and far,

We are primarily at war

with our self own,

The seeds that are sown

within our own self

decide fruits, crops and pelf.

Gently reminds me the sage,

softly turning wisdom’s page,

Long before others cause us pain,

the prickly seed has already lain

within us for a long time,

The externals merely chime

with the seed’s potential prime,

How will you get sweetness from a lime?

A wounded sapling

 

A tiny sapling bruised and injured,

Just a centimeter left

with its sole leaf intact,

It was a storm

on a free roam,--

A careless gardening hand

digging the sand

cut the sapling small

with a careless scythe-scrawl,

And the flowering prospects gone,

The wounded sapling with inaudible moan,

With a conscience asking for reparation,

I wet the soil around the wounded sapling

and carefully take out the thready root,

My effort’s little fruit,--

The tiny root is intact

and promise someday a new shoot,

I replant it with care

in the shadow where

the scorching sun can’t reach

and breach

the little wounded sapling’s fight back.

Sprouts the sole leaf

after a few days of pain and grief,

A new shoot

after the destiny’s miserable loot.

Fight back is easy

if your pain hasn’t turned you grumpy and sleazy,

And intact are your roots,--

The core values and basic attributes;

the fundamentals of one’s faith;

that sublime soul’s weighth,

If these aren’t lost

passed as you through biting frost,

and the storms laid you bare,

Ate your well-deserved share

and cut you down

leaving you with a painful frown

and a single leaf

completely mired and lost in grief,

Even then if your root

doesn't lose faith in a new shoot,

It will draw the sap of life

even from the sharp edges of circumstantial knife,

And new shoots will sprout

with a victorious shout.

But if the root is broken

and the substratum web of your

core values is uprooted and shaken,

Then even a canopy all luxuriant

with sheen and smile brilliant

won’t sustain you

if you have to reshape a life new

after being arrowed by destiny’s arrows few,

In the face of accidental throws of life

and all the uncontrollable strife

try we must

and stay just

clinging to our roots

even against bloody, blinding shoots,

Even while you groom well with swanky boots,

Never abandon you earthly roots,

Good clothes, modern styles

and much concerned about worldly hoots,

Please brother, remember your roots,

Keep it intact and in good health,

For it’s the real wealth,

The cause of all the superficial shine,

The basic sustaining spine,

Spring, hop, drop, lop, mop

and reap the life’s surface crop,

Change colors as much as you like,

Enjoy undulations, dips and hike,

But keep rooted

even while well suited and booted,

Never abandon your core values and faith,

Only this much this poor bard saith.

The summer rose

 

Sun-singed summer rose,

I remember luscious days those

when your spring-kissed smile

rose over all hate and vile,

Thy buxom, fresh, healthy

petals laden with dew

whereupon well-fed butterflies flew,

Fragrance carrying mystical clew,

That was then

the spring was at its peak when,

Now the very air on fire,

Waters gone to sire

rain somewhere else,

While here the fiery summer yells.

Here you stand in June heat,

Singed, burnt with a feeble greet,

The heat can’t beat

and eat

the essential core of your smile

with her fiery guile,

Though beaten, shaken and

pushed against the wall,

you still avoid the final fall

and flash the call

of your essential nature,

and behold the dim beacon

of beauty with a proud stature.

You still carry a smile feeble,

The once big stream reduced to a dribble,

But still it mans the post,

And avoids a complete, fiery roast,

Your small, dull pink, sun-lynched flowers

still hold the chance of beauty and showers

and raise a toast

with a defiant boast

for the dew-kissed autumnal nights

drenched with misty delights,

These fragile little smiles and petals

in the pit of fire

will sire

the blossoms all rosy

enjoying the climes all cozy,

They are like

the surviving columns of army,

Holding their little petalous sabres

against the fiery onslaught swarmy,

The will to survive against a total rout

with their rebellious shout,

They won’t be out

till the rains reach home,

And cool nights return

after the other hemisphere’s roam.

I call these the flowers in the fire,

Adamant beauty with a challenge dire,

Smile will win over fury and fire,

Another spring awaits

with its full blossomed baits.

The pickle seller

 

In this fast-paced, worried world,

he is slow-paced and relaxed,

The elderly pickle seller

who visits the village on Wednesdays,

Gently pulling his bicycle,

His wooden tray

bearing jars of different pickles,--

Mango, lemon, chili, mixed,

Made at home with extreme care.

He doesn’t shout,

He gently trills,

As you hear his kindly hawking notes,

you suddenly know it’s Wednesday,

He must be visiting seven villages

on seven different days,

A small target audience

for his little business,

Following his weekly rules

as obediently as his mixtures of spices,

It might be a world of

ultramodern foods, tastes and culinary techniques,

of home deliveries and swanky food courts,

But a bit of his pickle

still brings water and taste

to the poor disadvantaged tongues,

And even the well-off

may sometimes go for a taste change.

His Wednesday visit,

going from years after years,

from his youth to old age,

fills the vacant culinary space

left there by the economic disparities,

He has his little world

in this big, clamoring, clattering bazaar.

He doesn’t run,

he gently walks,

He doesn’t shout,

He merely whispers his hawking notes,

He isn’t bothered about factories and corporations,

He is happy with his portion of his room

where he prepares his pickles,

Beyond jet-flying complexities,

he is joyful on his bicycle,

Beyond celebrity chefs and their philosophical cooking,

He is happy with his ever-same pickles,

Beyond the stampede of more and more,

he still weighs his world

in grams of pickles

and calculates the finances in one, two rupees and paisas,

He carries lots of change in his pocket,

Small notes and coins to deal with poor customers,

But he brings big culinary delight

to many a poor heart.

He owns his Wednesday in the village

more than anyone else,  

It’s his day,

Arrives he with the sun’s fresh ray,

A gentle hawking walk,

And then goes away for the next six days.

A little game of loss and gain

 

The white-browed, fan-tail flycatcher,

Sallies which on airy pamper,

Now seems in offbeat temper,

It sits on the terrace railing,

Perched like the court’s king,

Looks down at a curious pigeon on yard’s wall,

Very curious is the pigeon,

Looking on the floor below,

tentative and looking to make a decision

to collect some grain with precision,

But the flycatcher seems to give a warning,

Its notes already in mourning,

And when its warning tweets fail,

It sallies down to avoid a tragic tale,

It’s sitting higher,

From there the situation looks dire,

A cat is behind a column to sire

a hunting chance to quench its stomach’s fire,

The low-sitting pigeon cannot see

the flycatcher’s warning key,

The flycatcher then does a heroic act,

Inspired by the book of birdie pact,

It sallies down

and almost lands on the pigeon with a frown,

The pigeon moves a bit

to doze the hit,

It but looks determined to pick its grain,

Focused is its brain,

For survival all this pain,

But alas all goes vain.

It lands with a flutter

to the flycatcher’s disgust utter,

All effort to life goes down the gutter,

Pounces fast the cutter,

Clutter and stutter,

The hiding cat is fast,

Emerges full blast,

Flurried flutter and agonized mutter,

Soft meat cut like butter,

Trail of blood on the floor,

Angrily the flycatcher swore,

The cat scurries away with its catch,

Carrying its snatch,

It has kittens to rear,

Little dumplings dear,

Maternal instincts sheer,

I see it relaxing the next day,

Post the successful slay,

A tiny teat

shines with soft pinkish greet,

The meat turned to milk,

Wonderful recycling of life and death,

The handover of breath,--

Old bodies changing into new bodies fresh.

A flower on the burning pyre

 

It’s fiery hot,

The sunrays  burn, singe and angry lot,

Almost like a vast open oven,

Everything and everyone

getting slowly baked with fiery greed,

I know we need

this heating to survive and grow,

Futile isn’t the sweat on thy brow,

This heat sows the seeds for

cool, greeny prospects in times to come.

The trees tested and shorn of leaves,

Their spirit grieves,

But they have to pass this test

for luxuriant growth and rest

during the monsoon rains,

Forgotten when will be all pains.

Tired birds, panting beaks

among sandy airy shrieks,

They have to keep the song going,

Keep the birdie boat rowing

for the sake of rainy days,

when there will be a joyful maze

of nests, hatchlings and love,

A brush with luxuriant canopy’s shove.

The land parched, cracked, rusted,

All spirits lying dusted,

With open wounds and cracks the land praying,

A piteous cattle braying,

Everything praying with full receptivity and faith,

Lying open like a vast open bowl

for the sky’s grace to fall

in the form of raindrops as blessings,

Having so submissively lain

waiting for the first rain

and dance among the fragrance of the soil,

Forgotten will be all burning toil,

The wind that burns the eyes now

will turn a soothing whisk gyrating

for cool shove

on frayed tempers and stressed brow.

I just have to wait

and not give into frustration’s bait,

while even the iron railing seems to melt,

and brace up my fortitude’s belt.

There is a miracle,--

A little flower in my small garden,

Singed with fire

but still smiling on the burning pyre,

While the burning sunrays

feel capable of burning

even the paint and plaster on the wall,

The sunburnt flower avoids beauty’s total fall,

A little bit of icing on the cake of miracle,

A butterfly on the sunburnt flower,

Carrying the colors of defiance

and survival against all odds,

A little chit of flying colors,

diving, fluttering among the

air on fire,

That’s enough for me,

This little miracle in this furnace,

All is well

as long as you have a little flower

and a butterfly

carrying the seed, the baton, the prospect

of cool, luxuriance, rains and loving breeze

liberate which will everything from fire’s seize.