Image credits – pixahive.com

ODE TO JUNE, 2008

Deep in the abyss of my aging mind
in a cocooning ball of mementos,
lies memories of summers left behind
of rainy days and windy blows

In that basket full of mangoes
in the fading green of the chausa and badami
and the bright yellow of the alphonsos
that beamed like our spirits – innocent and free

In that manji made of cotton ropes
and the dangling jute and plastic sheet
in the noisy clobbering wooden doors
that failed to stop the rain and sleet

In the steaming hot fritters – spicy and crisp
straight off the pot of bubbling oil
and the juiciest jamuns- fresh and brisk
that incited tears of sheer joy

In the dated tales from my old grandmother
stories of her village and that cat with eight lives
in the playful rebukes from my tired mother
who caught our mischiefs from our twinkling eyes

In the callous forgetfulness of school
of the math teacher’s warnings and her crumpled frown
in the oblivious ignorance of the rules
and that joyful prancing around the old town

memories of the summers and of rains
of my childhood’s May and June
where bittersweet bliss and glee reigns
and where sorrows of the world prune

Deep in the abyss of my mellow mind
in an unwinding cocoon of mementos
lies memories of June left behind
my cadenced laughter resounding in crescendos.

THE DEMISE

Dread clouds my being
as I step inside the half-lit room
the sour odor of medicines
the bitter scent of death
the realm of decay;

on a deflated double mattress
she lies, stiff and severe
swollen body and wilted veins
early signs of death
creeping in on her
climbing between her legs

blue feet, gigantic legs
squeezed in stomach, unruly breasts
clenched fists, parched neck
scrawny face, fallen hair

I bend down in a sorry
quest, for signs of her breaths
slow and laboured
harsh and stubborn
they deafen my ears

I leer longingly-
at the slender hands
that once held mine
at the twinkling eyes
that once lulled me
at the faded grey hair
that resembled mine
at the pink mouth, dry now
that once kissed me
all repugnantly rendered
together, jarringly
in a vile ball of glum

her heaving breasts
the delayed onset of death

I feel the wetness
a tear hangs on the
precipice, unwilling
to let go;

I turn swiftly
and it falls conceding

-a makeshift pyre
under four pairs of hands
brings along a peculiar smell
of dead birds and wet soils

the magnolia of her hair
churns with the other smells,
releasing a nauseating incense
acrid and attar like-
I sicken up and spew
as her now cold arms are
put carelessly on the wooden deathbed

she is lifted now
and I whisper nothing
but a silent farewell---

DREAMS OF A GRAVEYARD

I often dream
of headstones and morose trees
of mossy graves with wilted weeds
where lies the last signs of
the decaying lives;

one of the mother
whose sons forgot her bent back
that toiled with years of weight,

one of the boy- the star midfielder of his school
whose trophies stood cobwebbed
in a darkened room,

of the ice-cream man
whose lone truck rusted- a haven
for the pigeon’s nest,

of the artist who painted landscapes
and whose palette seldom had the
rotting white of his gravestone’s head,

I tread on the wildflowers
And the mutinous grass
breathing in the protruding
smell of drying wreaths,

I sit next to the fading headstone
of a forgotten poet
whose name is writ in leftover
paint- as transient as the
river on the bank of which she
wrote her last lament,

I rest my head on the edge of her
grave aching to hear the withering
sounds of life but only manage to
gather the screeching echoes of death,

I often dream
of headstones and aging trees
of dried-up graves with raging weeds
where screams the last signs
of forgotten lives.