Monday, 29 June 2020

Letters




I remember we once agreed to meet every three days

like an international postcard mailed with a stamp pasted on its corner.

Just so, we could avoid the suspicion of evil eyes,

drilling their bore wells on our parched lands.

But you know well what happened as the fireflies flew between us,

Floating, Cupid’s portion glistening on their tiny backs, glowing for our nightly rendezvous,

making it flower, like miniature lanterns flocking;

reminding me of the neelakurinjis of the Shola forest –

purple and blue flowers blossoming once every seven years, phenomenally.

Isn’t that why we went back there each night – to find the swarming dots of light

and dip in the fragrance of wildness – the flowers and the rest?

By the way, those flowers over the climber, covering the tree

with that bench beneath, neatly tucked inside the shade was my favorite. Yours too.

That tree often reminded me of the black hair of an Indian bride bejeweled with white jasmines,

like snowflakes on summer mornings, the blend of warmth and whiteness of those nights;

We always hurried to hide behind her cascade of leaves,

like hungry locusts coming east during the summertime,

before the monsoons could range a battlefield of marshness,

before the land found us sauntering hand in hand,

and before reality dawned on us like the rain showers, unprecedented.


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