the air is fried. Summer's sun
hits sharply at the kadhai,
oil waves lapping at its edge
golden buoys bobbing
at its heart
The day's charade
is just stirring: in these
cracks between acts
bread pakodas are eaten
and chai is sipped
The farce is played out
by afternoon, we are stuffed
battered and simmered low
daily disquiets steeped
then sweetened and dissolved,
renotified to the next date
I have long laboured
under the assumption
that growing,
becoming,
is an exercise
in accumulation.
Today as I labour even longer
chasing the insoluble
each morning, squelching
the fallen mulberries —
I feel keenly that this growth
is so much more
a study of loss.
The fruit is evidently ripe,
its sweet sanguine pearls
detonate underfoot. They bleed
running rivulets, pooling
in a crack between
two stone slabs.
By evening
it leaves a scab
by Sunday, scarcely
a stain.
I am thinking how
the tree bears fruit
each year, extending far
beyond itself
sprinkling its offerings
loosely, widely.
I wonder lately
if we can flower
in its image.
In this new life, I go to court everyday.
As the world steadily falls apart,
the mercies are too small to sustain.
Evidently, no centre can hold this decay.
So much is lacking: softness, courage, heart –
but in this new life, I go to court everyday.
We are employed in a godless, graceless ballet:
we flounder, we flail, we falter, we restart.
The mercies are too small to sustain.
Once, a whisper: they may suffice. I sift, I weigh,
I reach no conclusion – finding is an art
in this new life. I go to court everyday
and confirm violence is regular, almost stale.
Rarely, relief. Mainly, the need to unlearn, unchart.
The mercies are simply too small to sustain.
We fold hands, petition, appeal, plead, pray:
feathery hope, fainter belief – for the most part.
In this new life, I go to court. Everyday,
the mercies are too small to sustain.
(A villanelle attempt after the hugely enjoyable 'ballroom' by Zefeni from a few days ago)
Kissan-pink bougainvillea
gather dust as the city twists
to face the summer
In a clamour of scooters: two
men in periwinkle shirts,
no helmets. The sun lights
up one's face as he turns
pillion to laugh
A DTC bus exhales,
heaving to a halt ahead.
The gamcha hanging off my auto
puffs in its wake
Red rearranges to green.
In anticipation
we growl sharply
to the left, as if about to
take flight –
We want for wings.
We stutter instead
to a stop, stationed
right where we were,
bound seemingly for
nowhere
when we wake
we stretch, releasing
towards the kitchen.
we undo sleep's creases
and press ourselves
into the day brewing
I think of how soon
we will reach
and not find these walls
in which we have taken shape
I wonder how it will feel
to unfold elsewhere:
new borders, knocking corners,
edges unknown,
lines we are still learning
we will cut future
patterns, bracing –
fashioning cranes
to build afresh
in a house with a view
in a city that no longer
looks like it once did,
things come in twos:
faded fish-scale cups
holding chai that cuts
past the mass of a morning
too heavy to lift alone
pairs of chopsticks inherited
from a home now dissolved –
its residue still generous,
still sweet
banana-yellow polka bowls,
mouths held wide in welcome
and in friendship and in understanding
who we might someday become
white plates of weight
halfway to full and just
double the fourth – plainly
speaking to what we need
in these animals the ark is made,
steadily, unhurriedly, setting sail
you heat the oil
and I sit at your feet,
the balcony's junglescape
by our side
your jasmine fingers
work in my hair,
kneading scalp circles
and composing orbits –
lines run and rehearsed
until off-book
the day is detangled
sectioned and braided,
ends left loose