Collecting Moments

I collect moments 

Like people collect seashells 

In their pockets at the seaside 

Do you do that too? 

Do you put the moments in a 

Great big jar in your mind

And sometimes take them 

Out one by one

To savour on a quiet day?

Maybe you arrange

Your moment collection 

By size, or by how

Each one shines 

In the soft light of memory 

I like to keep my

Moments catalogued by

The ages of my children 

Even if some moments

Are entirely child free

And there is special kind of joy

On rainy days and Sundays

In airing this entire 

Moment collection 

Polishing each one with so many

Words that exasperate 

My listeners but I only hear

A jingling in my heart

An evening offering

 

Photo: Shavak Srivastava

Is darkness always the

Opposite of sanctuary

Why do I persist in being 

Seduced by the narrative 

That each virtue that shines 

Must be visible in the light

Even as morning holds promise 

Of freshness and renewal 

Where would I be without 

Restoration offered by night

Nourished by womb’s shadows 

My cells intertwined in trust

Now let me incubate my heart

Daily between dusk and dawn. 

Poetry as Practice

Committing to the challenge of

Writing a poem a day through 

This month sometimes feels like

Welcoming a difficult guest, one I 

Revere and even adore, but who 

Makes incessant demands on my

Time, almost all waking moments

Even when drifting off to sleep 

______

I must confess being a slave to 

Vanity, seeking the clever words

While avoiding the verbose ones

Searching for “untrammelled” my

Mind only supplies “uncontrolled”

An unfortunate recent reminder of 

Exploding bombs; shaking off

Shivers, I reach for poetry’s salve

______

A poem is not mere tessellation

Interlocking each idea to another

Repeating shapes without a gap

It breathes in the spaces around 

Every word, breathing out images

That not just ripple outwards and

Towards the heart of the reader

But become libations to the sky. 

For today I want to live the Unexamined Life

I know that my stoic friend will

Perhaps consider this sacrilege

And the world itself increasingly

Values knowledge and its sibling

Logic, as life’s underlying lynchpin

But logic hasn’t prevented a single

War, and knowledge only leads to

More questions than can ever be 

Answered, yet not dousing the 

Feverish desire for a Theory of Everything 

So today I sit in my lovely garden 

Slowly sipping tea and watching 

Mynahs peck holes in the grass 

Listening to a satisfied bee’s buzz

Sensing life’s worth is beyond examining. 

 

Feeling the weight of words

 

I turned to writing poetry in

An attempt to make sense of 

A dizzying world, trying to craft 

Metaphor and sometimes even 

Metre, hoping that the cadence 

Would bring something to light

But increasingly I find that the

World exceeds all the ways

I try to speak about it so that 

Every metaphor I come up with 

Is too small to contain meaning 

Though I feel compelled to try

It is perhaps time to just allow a

Cluster of word pebbles to settle 

In the depth of crevasses within

And feel how the weight of each

Expands or contracts the waves

Of resonance in my internal tides. 

Upside-down World

I must have been six or seven

When in the long slow afternoons

Of joyously lazy summer holidays

My seven or eight year old brother 

Having exhausted his repertoire

Of games, tricks and every prank

His cheeky leadership led me through 

I would flop on the relative coolth

Of our bedroom’s mosaic floor and

Stare up at the sluggish swirl of

Ceiling fan blades moving thick air

And wonder what it would be like

If I could climb up to live for a while

In the upside-down world furnished only

By upright floor fans and vertical lights

A minimalist world where I could roam 

Watching the antics of all the others

Caught up in their daily mundane busyness

While I floated dreamily between air and light;

Decades later as the world seems to unravel 

I find myself longing for those innocent times 

A return to daydreams in which I could tell

What was upside down and what was right side up. 

Above all, be Witness

 

Often I take my questions 

Prompted by mind’s restless

Sway, out with me as I walk

Among the trees and water

Bodies rippling in evanescent 

Flow, glancing upwards in 

Modest hope that the changing 

Sky might supply me answers

My feet moving in rhythmic 

Beat, each one placed in front

Of the other, and as I relax into 

Movement, my gaze softens 

As clarity shines for a moment 

In the acknowledgment that

Knots may remain untangled 

The world forever unsolvable 

But the sighing wind and the 

Grasses it tosses to and fro 

Carry the unceasing reminder 

To above all, be witness.

----------------------------------

NB: This photograph was taken a year ago and since then these grasses have been witness to their own removal, to make way for more manicured green planting.

Exhale

 

Before the day claims me

With its inevitable over analysis

By every expert of every stripe

About who really blinked first

The airwaves clogging up

As all sorts of predictions 

Spell out how profoundly 

Uncertainty has mangled

Our collective wellbeing 

Let me just lie here, still

And silent, recollecting 

My yoga teacher’s voice 

As he exhorts me regularly 

To keep my focus on the

Length of the out breath.

Re-cognition

 

I meant to write an Easter poem 
But cold shadowy fingers seemed
To obscure every metaphor, each word image
Crafted with care to speak of renewal 
Behind my smiling, animated face
A morphing mind reshaped ideas
Kept rekindling thoughts about
Rupture, about how we are 
Always in search of the mystical
And the mythical to save us
From ourselves, and we fly to
The moon and beyond, looking 
For a way out, only to meet 
Ourselves coming back, having 
Discovered that we cannot 
Outrun loss. Maybe before our
Hearts can truly comprehend
Resurrection; we must turn to
Face ourselves fully, but first
Set down our masks. 

Wonder in Whiskers

 

Almost at my mid-sixties

I have relented once again

To the call of motherhood

But this time and for the

Very first time, I am mommy

To a soft-pawed feline critter

Yuzu, though far from citrusy

Is bumpily cute and quite naughty

Hiding behind curtains he is

Inscrutable, always half alert

Biding his time to the moment

He’ll leap to the kitchen counter

He daily stars in suspense stories

Sniffing out every nook trying to

Climb impossible indoor crannies

But all he truly longs for is the

Day I see as him as adult enough

To go chase butterflies and birds.

On this Good Day

A man was betrayed

With a deceitful kiss

By one who had loved him

And the mob taunted and

Hurled insults at a mock court

Where false witnesses used

Manufactured outrage to have

Him arrested for treason and

Stripped naked but made

To wear a crown of thorns

This man walked carrying the

Burden of the cross that became

The instrument of his dying

When they say he proclaimed

“It is finished.”

This was two thousand years

Ago, and what has really

Changed since then?

Today there are countless

Betrayals, numberless false

Witnesses in faceless courts

Or halls of power, who use

Fake outrage to make bogus

Accusations about entire realms

And civilisations, taking the lot

Of us to the brink of armageddon

While the supposed good men

Stand helplessly by, and no one

Has any idea when we might say

“It is finished.”

The sky laughs at borders - II

 

As our unceasing thoughts took shape

In the words that we learned as babes

Then refined growing up determined to

Be clever, as we unwittingly allowed

Ourselves to be swayed by narratives

Of such sophistry, it clouded our worldview

We came to believe that nation-states are sacred

And their flags worthy of almost worship

Even when requiring the spilling of blood

Our hushed whispers about valour and patriotism

Rose like a chant as we raised our eyes heavenwards

As though hoping for benediction from above

Our gaze stilled encountering only simple

Expanse of sky - unmoving unchanging

Unsullied by grey tinges of storm clouds

Unproud even in its limpid blue lightness

Tranquil sky that laughs at our feeble antics

Of keeping our scriptures bound in barbed wire.

Written on 02 April 2026

The signs are everywhere

 

Where I live there are clouds

Everywhere, those of war

Also the seasonal rain clouds

Which we notice but with some

Dread, having conflated the two

Every cloud brings the occasional

Wind gust that swoops and swirls

Lifting leaves, tossing debris that

We watch mesmerised, our minds

Fearful, recalling debris of another strain

The wind meanwhile doesn’t howl

It seems instead to murmur aloud

A message we would rather not

Hear, the one that reminds us that

We too are complicit in hurrying

Scurrying through the world in an

Attempt to secure for ourselves

And those we love, a safe space

Shielded from every type of cloud

Not heeding the signs, “Reduce Speed”.

Written on 01 April 2026

The Clock

 

When they tell you to rush

Because there isn’t enough time

And you’re reminded of the days

When you needed to bide time

So often they urged you to be useful

It’s almost a crime to waste time

Pulling all-nighters to meet the deadline

Didn’t you wish you could buy time

Long childhood afternoons were best

With such pleasure you would kill time

Now you are finally content to rest

There’s so little that’s required to fill time.