Shared nook

As I cross forty

 I stealthily grow into my mother’s body.

I wear her saree, her grey hair,

her osteo-arthritic knee.

We have supported different political parties,

lusted for different types of men,

I the mellowed one, 

whose softness she often rebukes,

she the sterner stuff, a stronger one

who wipes away tear drops in secret.

Her Ramakrishna and my Buddha 

nestled together among our cup of coffees.

I share her dreams, blood group and

those ugly patches of varicose vein.

Her rebel mind to exist 

without her husband’s last name

percolated in my extra marital relation,

my horoscope of uncombed desires

her insomnia...There’s much more that connect us.

 she will never need me as I need her.

And this unequal sharing 

indeed is Comforting!

The funny shape ...

These trees have an aura of innocence in them;

they are like the pregnancy between 

the earth and the heaven,

standing tall and silent

in anticipation

promising birth.

We played around those trees,

my childhood friend and I;

innocent giggles resonated along the slight breeze

and then our tiny hands firm and strong 

around the shovel

we lifted it high and brought it down firm

on the tiny blue head of a snake

that had slithered out of a nearby hole.

The dull thud sound resonated as well.

Its head, smashed and artistically pasted midst the tree roots,

made a funny shape.

We giggled even more.

A poem for tea cup and Sunday morning ---

For Shabnam Das Manna ...

Your little china tea cup

warmed by steam,

the honey colored swirl

churning out all over again those

 long tucked-away dripping dreams;

you hold it as if

both of you are plotting something secret

your tea-colored eyes

steaming with memories

both fresh and distant

and a few rainy day stories of the past

sitting in front of you on their hunches.

Then the morning

kisses your cheek

like a lover you have known

like a river tickling a pure night

 carries you

to a town

where trees still grow tall in the river bank

away from the newspaper and the car-honks

your tea-leaf eye-lids brimming  up

with a childlike joy

that you have known

but have forgotten lately

and then you are not 30 yet,

so you smile and giggle and

 hope that the world understands your language!

  

Almost Love...

 365 days and a few nights later

I am trying to taste the familiar warmth

and hear the forgotten footfalls

that has become silent like both of us.

We have kept veracity and a few smiles

In a curtain box

planning to take it with us

later

someday, sometime,

when the callings of life will be completed.

Till then we will postpone love.

Now sleep is lonely and famished

as dreams have deserted the eyes and

both of us imagine

a future love
waiting
today...
the day after...
and a day after... 

and this explicitly is the loss of love!

Shall we pretend? ...

Let’s pretend 
that someday I will run to pick up those flowers
that nestled in the dust
even before the monsoon rain would touch them.
Let’s pretend
that I know magic
that I can fly
and I can talk to a frog
and the chair is a ship.
Let’s pretend
hidden beneath the memories
and lost between the leaves
someday
I would be able to
sleep peacefully;
And let’s pretend
a river will stream through my room
and my room will become a garden!

Sometimes ...

Sometimes 

the lump of a grief

that was stuck in your throat for long
will help you compose a poem;
the lines will come out like a dancing butterfly
words will descend from everywhere,
from the right and the left, this way and that way,
upright, with head held high
like a fresh bout of summer rain and
will melt your sorrow
drop by drop
silently, peacefully,
without a movement, no stir
no wrinkle, nor a stain!
And there will be
just those remnants of a season gone by
like the lingering wetness of some past tears.

Slowly, eventually

The azure sky will promise an equal light,
no beginning, no end, but
an equal music, and
only then you will reach a spotless holy
Freedom!

I am ...

Dear One, you are so weary!

There are creases on your otherwise firm eyebrows.

Come, gaze into my eyes

I might be the woman you want to look at.

But dear One, wait! Before you think

I am the woman with whom you want to be, and

before you want to drown yourself

into the depth of my eyes,

Realize, I am no metaphor, nor a muse,

neither a promise;

Look at my hands, a bit soiled and

 the tired lines below my eyes;

find the bruises and the blisters on my feet,

my smile, inside which you want to hide your trouble

 is not a poem, not a sonnet

but a courage that tells the world to bring on the grunge!

I might be the woman you want to touch

dear One,

but understand, I am neither a prize nor a grub,

not even an apology, not your excuse;

recognize that you make love to the

skin and bones that might have dirt on it. 

You make love to hair, nerves, veins, sweat and tears.

If I am who you wish to love, dear One,

Let me be human just as you,

share my best and the worst

take every single line of my sunshine and my eclipse

Let me create a universe for myself, for you, for all

Let me build the world as I wish to.

Don’t forget that

I am born to create, to build.

And then, 

if the walls crush down

or the sky grumbles, hold my hand

I promise I will never let go!