With my back turned
I hurl stones after stones
Into the wishing well
Disturbing the frog’s sleep
In its libidinous dreams
My moon had fallen into the well
My pail could not bring it up
I continue to drop stones
Someday the water will rise enough
To bring up my beautiful moon.
(This Wishing Well is found on the hills of Yercaud in Southern India.The [...]
Archive for August, 2004
21 Aug
The Wishing Well
19 Aug
The blue kurunji flower These questions cam…
The blue kurunji flower
These questions came up early
Thoughts streamed in, interrupted
By a bizarre subterranean logic
They have gone away vacating space
Here, on the ground, there is brown space
Where there was a vaulting dome
The elephants cried then in streaming tears
Shuffling and stamping chained feet
I see a one-legged crow sitting, quietly,
On the cable that bridged vast silences
The only [...]
15 Aug
The Hanging of a Child-rapist
A silver-locked man shook his head
That was a clinching moment
Darkness spread its wings
What was to happen , would.
The walls were closing in
Like they had been threatening
All these years , nights and moments
Their pale textures merged
Into the corners of his mind
The time has come to experience
Slow and painful unfilling of space ,
Sudden and abrupt ejection into [...]
8 Aug
butterfly Stinging, stinking caterpillar Ate …
butterfly
Stinging, stinking caterpillar
Ate beauty-holes in our cheekoo leaves
And disappeared into
The rainbow outside our compound.
6 Aug
The Palm Trees in Our Village
These palm trees cogitate in groups,
Just as our mild-mannered cattle do ,
Casting their dark brooding shadows
On the limpid waters of our paddy fields
In the sowing season their shadows
Tickle our women’s delicate feet
Submerged in soft knee-deep slush
When our fields are shorn and brown
Our palms proudly sport golden fruit
This male one in the shadowy corner
Sports no [...]
3 Aug
Our Pipal tree
Our moss-laden backyard wall played host
To hundreds of creeping-crawling creatures
A little Pipal with thick-green conical leaves
Spread its roots in its entrails leaving a crack
The widening crack soon became home
To a wild creeper with tiny red flowers
That set our entire backyard sky ablaze
The Pipal grew quickly in horizontal space
Little blue birds from far lands [...]
