Nisheedhi's Nature

Poetry

Nature Poetry

nisheedhi
Nisheedhi's Nature Poetry
Nature Poetry

nisheedhi
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 Contents
Houses 1

Tree 2

The power of knowledge 3

Hampi rocks 4

Morning images 5

Morning walk 6

There will be no rain 7

Morning at the Palm Hotel,Vizag 9

The parijat flowers 10

Moths in the first rains 11

This festival 12

Our childhood 14

Tonight 15

The blade of grass 16

The Dam 17

Corners 18
Winter shadows 19

Borra caves 20

In the blue mountains 21

Flowers 22

Our Parijat tree 23

A night in the Topslip forest 24

Our cuckoo friend 25

Twitter 26

On a boat in the Ganga in Kolkata 27

The Ambhir lake 28

At the Park Hotel on the Vizag beach 29

This September 30

Our Pipal tree 31

The Palm Trees in Our Village 32

The moon 33

My sister 34

At the Kumarakom lake resort(Kerala) 35

Midnight music 36

A train journey through Kerala 37

The sea 38

Hail 39

Morning in Hyderabad 40

Moths in the first rains 41

The Wind 42

A gust of wind 43

There is defiance in the air 44

Images in the morning walk 45

Thinking poems 46

The tree pretends to be alive 47

The afternoon sounds 48

Unspent spring 49

Women in the afternoon 50

Our village home 51

The hillock with a hole on the top 52

Houses

Houses we think of, in sun and rain-

Those houses which live, cheek by jowl,
With maternal mango trees of summer.
Their shadows paint their white canvas.
In monsoon the houses are painted green
In delicate taffeta of luminous moss.
The squirrels climb the tree looking
Curiously into your bedroom window.

1
Tree

It had stood there bare and brown and stone dead

And waved in the breeze pretending to be alive.
Evening birds had still been sitting on its branches.

Yesterday it became a mere image in my mind

Two axes did a fine job in the day and from balcony
I now have uninterrupted view of the blue sky.

2
The power of knowledge

Yesterday evening, as on all days,

The banyan briefly dallied with river
Its tiny fruits floated on the waters
Glistening in the sunlight like rubies
The woman-bather, while disentangling
Flickering stars of pieces of driftwood
From her floating amavasya-like hair ,
Took no notice of the fruity overtures.

The last ferry did not bring him here

Nor did the five ‘o clock circular train
Which disgorged people in sweaty bush shirts
Onto the dusty Bagh Bazar platform .
The mongrel got up from its disturbed sleep
Sniffing at the coal-smell left by the train
Went back to its sleep under the cement bench.

The beggars on the river steps ate their

Early dinner and retired for the day
Somehow they had scintillating knowledge
That nobody was actually expected
On the train or by the ferry that day
Or for that matter , on any other day.

3
Hampi rocks

The evening swapped the orange sky

For a silver-lined cloud in tatters.
The rocks had sizzled in the day;
At sundown their fever subsided.
Their blazing orange desires ebbed
In the nucleus of their inner being.
Time had burnt them to perfection
Beyond the pale of a petrified self.
Their sun-smell touched the bushes
Quickening life in their brown limbs
As the sun sank behind world’s edge
Their shadows vanished in the sky.

4
Morning images

There the parijat flowers lie on the earth ,

Their faces in the dust, feet to the sky.
Someone’s cut flower creeper still fills
The air with previous night’s fragr’nce.
On the hills ,from a balcony ,a dark woman
Looks down as if expecting the milkman.
There a man is up in arms against the sun.
A w’man froths at mouth with toothpaste.
Words remain,as many scraps of memory.
An image or two vanishes in the wilderness;
Its fragrance stays as unrealized poetry.

5
Morning walk

The night moon turned pale at the sight of a

Significant sun, rising after nights of low rain.
There a car comes laden with rich ripe people.
A heavy auto-rickshaw overflows with body parts .
With the winter round the corner, the monsoon
Says goodbye from the dried up street puddles.
We see the last of the frog carcasses on th’ road.

6
There will be no rain

The sky is deathly pale

With no birds and fluffy clouds
The cold flows from clamminess
Not out of possible silver rain-
Pearl-white and smooth
But not encouraging emotion.

Monsoon floods loom like

Imminent possibility and then
The ocean’s belly may become
The seat of a violent storm
Bringing wind at high velocity
And rain lashing my awning.

From the road the lake shimmers

Blue and crystalline, with dark
Figures of cormorants on the rocks
Protruding in the middle of the lake.
They hang above the edge of the rock
Flapping their restless wings.
Trees brood on the edge of the lake;
Their shadows gyrate on the ripples.

Then suddenly the sun breaks

Through the gray clouds
Painting their edges in gold
There is lightness in the air,
Cool breeze and scattered clouds

7
There will be no rain after all.

8
Morning at the Palm Hotel,Vizag

Six A.M. the crimson orb

Bursts from the sea’s vastness
A red-and-white old lighthouse
With patches of chipped-off paint
An apparition of a coconut tree
With its frond struck down
By last year’s lightning.

9
The parijat flowers

There someone picked up parijat flowers

From the earth where they lay in dust
With their ghost-white faces down
To the earth , their red feet to the sky.
The man’s back bent over the earth as if
He wished to smell them straight from the earth.
The parijat tree looked on unconcerned.
The flowers now belonged to the earth.

10
Moths in the first rains

They appear from nowhere

And at the dead of the night
Embrace their shadows
On the frosted glass and die.
The window-sill is carpeted
With their transparent wings.
The garden walk is strewn
With innumerable carcasses
Of their one-night glory.

11
This festival

Wear your soul on the sleeve

Paint the roadside bushes red
Catch the grass-hopper by wings
Make it hold a tiny pebble.

When the fly sat on your nose

It was celebrating monsoon.
Think of the fly’s perspective.
You are a mere nose, a surface.

This festival let your hair down

Roam the countryside in bare feet
Sniff the rain-smell on the earth
Spread your tongue to catch hail
Scoop them up and feel them melt
In your enclosed finger-spaces.

Those red velvet insects from the earth

Live only for a few transient days
Take them into palm to feel them crawl;
Fear for the fragile velvet of their backs.

This festival, catch the cow by its udders

Gently coax them into thin silvery streams
Feel the milk flowing on puffed up cheeks
But leave some nourishing milk for the calf.

12
Stand under the guava tree after the night’s rain
Shake its trunk to let the raindrops fall on you.

Lie on the open ground facing the unlimited sky.

Take in its fresh mint breath of the blue sky
Close your eyes and see tiny fish-worms swim.

This festival, squat on the shallow riverbed

With its cool water touching your happy chin
Look at the far mountains over the water
Find them shaking as if the end of the world.

Stand on the sea with the waves beating the shore

Your feet sinking softly into the wet brown sand.

Sit on the cement bench in the garden of your house

And watch the shadows slowly emerge from its walls.
Climb the wide-spread banyan on the lazy river bank
And jump from its branches into the currents below.

This festival celebrate being alive, being aware.

13
Our childhood

In those days, consciousness flowed unbroken;

What went on in minds stretched to the horizons.
The mountains had no blue veil of secrecy
And the lakes seemed pure and crystalline.
The vegetable creeper bloomed in backyard
In yellow flowers that seemed like many moons.
We knew there would soon be plump gourds
On our thatched roof basking in the autumn sun
We would watch them growing every morning.

The afternoons were red-hot and weary.

The smell of charcoal in our kitchen stove
Somehow connected to our daily lives.
We dug patches in our garden thro’ the day
And when dusk fell we planted little beans
Just under the skin of the soaked earth.
We had not slept the whole night waiting
For the miracle of the sprouted seeds.
We had covered the tumescent guavas
With white cloth against marauding squirrels.
We watched them grow bigger and bigger
Hour to hour , morning after morning
At night when the jackals howled at the moon
We lighted our winter fires of dry twigs
And stood with our cold palms against the fire
As giant shadows played on the compound wall.

14
Tonight

Tonight you shall climb your roof

To lick jellied moonlight and catch
Flickering asteroids falling from the sky
To put them one by one in shirt-pocket.
When you walk in murky paddy fields
You shall be taken for a willow-th’-wisp.
Along the mud tracks the thorny bushes
Shall wear a black veil of moonless dark.
You shall peep into the dark steep step-well
And lower the metal pail tied to the rope
To gather pieces of a spectral moon.

15
The blade of grass

I cannot focus awareness on the winding road

The distant hill is covered in a blue haze
There is all-around oblivion felt in my unbeing
Only the other day I was a blade of grass
Today I cannot wave in the mountain breeze
Uprooted from my mother I do not know my being
Like that hill covered in a haze of forgetfulness.

16
The Dam

Then, at the dead of the night

The waters rose and swelled
To the high mud embankment
And spilled over to the village.
The mountains calmly looked on
While a flying chariot-in-flames
Had sheared their edges smooth.
The river swelled with pride
As rain poured into catchments
In the rugged mountain ghats.

The river is now bound within banks

Tamed by men in plastic helmets.
There is no excitement of spate.
It is now so much brown sand
And thin streaks of shallow water.
These days funeral fires rage
On the sun-baked river-bed.
On the annual festival days
Thousands of merry- making
Peasants and townsfolk, alike,
Congregate on the brown sand
To celebrate their God’s birthday.

17
Corners

Light poured through the corners;

A gentle breeze blew over them.
The corners had their own soul
They were sleeping in half light
Creating own silhouettes.
The jasmines whispered
Through soft jellied moonlight.
Their fragrance held’us in thrall.

Our old til’d house had its corners

Soft and purring like our kitten
They cast such fine shadows
Dusky, deep and mysterious.
We looked into our abandon’d well
To fathom the depth of its corners
The water there was a mere shadow
Shadow of a reality that once was.

18
Winter shadows

The shadows were liquid and sensuous

Dense in the core, undefined in the edge.
They were not like the morning shadows
Warm and expectant under the April sun.
They were not like the afternoon shadows,
Stentorian shadows striding behind you.
They touched your heart, tingled your skin
Tousled your hair and teased your mind.

19
Borra caves

It is as though I was there the other day

Only they have grown bigger and taller
And their inner spaces more cavernous.
That time I tried writing pretty pictures
On their scraggy walls in stunning hues
To mark leafy arrivals of the silver oak
And jackfruits sitting heavily on the bark.
I drew lovely pictures of charging bison.
Our tribeswomen danced dimsa all night
As we drank cup after cup of palm wine
And our dappu beat in rising frenzy.

Aeons ago I saw this very mountain

Gurgling to form a gigantic gas bubble
This very bubble hides the parchments
Of my ancestors’ glorious history.
They all went beyond the mountains
Never again to return to our land.
But I can still see all their dark specters
In the cavernous womb of this mountain
Clinging to the moss-laden roof upside down.
They shrieked out the secrets of the other-world
And of life beyond the mountain-peaks
That piled, one on the other, on sunny days.

(Stalactite caves dating back to the pre-historic times , some

distance from Vizag)

20
In the blue mountains

In the blue mountains

Passions do not rise high
The mountains gently shake
Shimmering silver oaks off
The wind in their hair.
These matronly mountains
Squat pretty in the valleys
Wearing their best velvets .
The air here is tea-fragrant
As magical woman-fingers
Pluck two leaves and a bud
To hurl into baby-baskets .
There is no anticipation here.
Time but hangs lightly ‘tween
Sips of tepid C.T.C. tea .

(in the tea gardens of Coonoor)

21
Flowers

These flowers spoke nothing

Waiting for indifferent lovers.
Their soft colours climbed the sky.
Their existence was close-ended
Being closely trapped in th’ sun.
Drinking moon-beams, they want to
Fly like birds in the higher zones.

22
Our Parijat tree

Our parijat had dropped all its flowers

At night when we were fast asleep
The tree had found its flowers too lovely
Too fragile ,to itself, to keep.
The flowers ,their tender faces all downcast,
Fell one by one on the earth to weep
With their orange feet to the sky, their faces
To be darker by the sun ,sad and deep.

The (Parijat) tree is sometimes called the “tree of sorrow”, because

the flowers lose their brightness during daytime; the scientific name
arbor-tristis also means “sad tree” (Wikipedia)

23
A night in the Topslip forest

All through the stillness of the night

The wind howled in the bamboo clump
The bamboo bushes danced in rapture
In the inky darkness our searchlight beamed
On shadowy forms of giant-sized bison
Their luminous eyes stared in unconcern
The creatures of the wild refused to appear
A night safari was just not their idea of fun .

24
Our cuckoo friend

In early spring our mango burst into flowers

And filled our verandah with fragrance
As our swinging feet touched the sky.
By May mangoes appeared in the foliage.
Then, one dark night, when we were fast asleep.
The monsoon came with fierce wind and gale
Spoiling the kid’s fun and promises of fruit.
We blame this entirely on cuckoo friend
Who brought in premature rains this season
By his persistent musical supplications.

25
Twitter

My birds twitter constantly;

Their colors refuse to climb the sky
Amid scattered sounds and sunrays.
My mornings are many-hued skies
Rising from treetops of birdsongs.

26
On a boat in the Ganga in Kolkata

Near the Babughat the Ganges wore

A splendid necklace studded with images
Of inverted candle lights under the bridge .
The flickering flame of the lantern
In our boat refused to dance to the
Winds death-tune in the inky darkness.
Near the jetty stood a dark monstrosity
Brooding in unillumined lon’liness .
Its cavernous stomach ache’d with
The darkest secrets of the high seas.

27
The Ambhir lake

From the road the lake shimmers

Blue and crystalline, with dark
Figures of cormorants on the rocks
Protruding in the middle of the lake.
They hang above the edge of the rock
Flapping their restless wings.
Trees brood on the edge of the lake;
Their shadows gyrate on the ripples.

28
At the Park Hotel on the Vizag beach

The coconuts with their weathered fronds

At times obtrude on your consciousness.
They stand resolute but gently shaking
Alongside the abandoned lighthouse
While the sea is unmoved and smiling,
Where it reaches out toward the far sky.

A pretty puffing steamer pops up

Like it is part of the un-human sea
Like the hordes of the feverishly flying
Dragonflies on the fringe of the blue sea
This red-tiled canopy structure
Makes a last-ditch vainglorious attempt
To merge seamlessly into the sea-scape
A small wicket gate with rusty hinges
Opens out into the sea’s expanse .

The red-and-white lighthouse is now a ghost

Which has lost its licking orange flames
You may stand on its top and wave your scarf
Command the ghost ships to rise instantly
I know you come here thrice each year
To rejoin the broken splinters of your self.

29
This September

This air is still crisp and there is promise of

Excitement on the leafy floor of the forest
As the mongoose scurries among the yellow leaves
Tens of thousands of zany butterflies of many hues
Have burst out of the bushes on the Tirumala hills
Striking the stunned panes of the passing cars .

30
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 visited the tree
Hundreds of big busy black ants crawled
All the way to its top dangling in the air
Our proud Pipal swayed, blissfully unaware
That its burgeoning growth brought havoc
It is a matter of time before the crack widens
And the bricks give way spelling its doom .

31
The Palm Trees in Our Village

The 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 fruits , only leafy extensions
We love it all the same for its shade

32
The moon

This season our backyard coconuts

Hid it under their swinging fronds
Behind our asbestos-sheeted shack,
Its presence marked by the pale shadow
Of our cow swishing tail on the insects
In the backyard’s lonely darkness.
The cow looked in the water trough
Giving out a low plaintive moan.
Her eyes shone through the night
As the rope of the pail seemed to move.
Actually it was a mere water snake
That had made the well its home.
Our hibiscus stood mute by the well;
Its flowers went gray by the moonlight.
Tiny flowers bloomed on the creeper
That had climbed our red-tiled roof.
Their fragrance filled the night air.
It was as though it was the moon
That smelled good in our backyard.

33
My sister

The flowers bloomed in our unkempt backyard;

My little sister clapped for their quick’ning.
The pumpkins grew fat with glowing textures
She asked why our palm had withered like that.
Her water –snake shed his scales on the fence.
She scooped out a handful of the soft earth,
Made it into tiny balls and quickly caught
A grasshopper by its wings and made it
Hold the balls, one by one by its tiny legs
That was a milkmaid carrying milk-pots.
When the season came of the butterflies
She counted the cocoons and watched them
Break out one by one as winged wonders.

Our coconut lost its frond in lightning.

This season wild flowers have grown all over.
Noisy cicadas from invisible crevices
Made exquisite music for us at dusk.
But there is now nobody to count those cocoons
When the butterflies will finally emerge.

34
At the Kumarakom lake resort(Kerala)

While poetry struggles for beauty-words

Wind and water hold sway over senses.
The green of the coconuts gains control
Over the shimmer of the boats and stillness.
Houses are nature in red tiled stature,
As are tall golden boats which are houses
Devoid of vulgar city crowds who come
To burp on oiled foods and play loud music.
Modesty prevents houses from showing up
Above unending horizon of coconuts
Their shadows merge into the brown walls;
Their corrugated tiled roofs have rain in them
Collected painstakingly in monsoon
Their patches become first green, then gray.

35
Midnight music

Midnight music is the rising ocean

Called by a reddening of the moon.
Midnight music is the pipal leaves
Playing the wind’s exotic hill music
As its fingers touch the spiked leaf-ends.
Midnight music is the invisible cricket
Singing from the dark silence of the bush.

36
A train journey through Kerala

A sea of coconuts smothered, sultr’ly,

The most unwilling moss-painted houses.
The banyan raised its feet high enough
For hundreds of creepy monsoon-creatures.
The journey then began in silver rain
Waiting for streaks of golden sunshine
To crawl through upright areca nut tree barks.
As the telephone wires went up and then down
A floating bird quickly froze in the sky.
First the coconut fronds ran to the hills
Then the chilly plants went red in the face.

37
The sea

Thought heralded a boatful of laughter

In spray-powdered and sprinkle-diffused
Froth seething with white salt and marine blue
As though the sea horizon heaved in
Musically many-colored and sound
Steeped in musty dead -and-dry fish smell.
A boy walked away from the sea-sun
And idly prancing about beach crows.
Vasco Da Gama’s stone tablet stood mutely
In history’s powdered rock and beach sand
And broken –colored flying old boat masts.

At the corner glistened wet sand and trees

Their shadows partly falling into the sea
Their dark hair hid in red rag agenda.
These white buildings sat idly in history’s
Tiled canopies witnessing communism’s
Capitalist fortunes and flight to oil lands.
Their French windows hid beauty and drama
In the shadows of jaded mosquito nets
Hot pepper creepers snaked all the way up
The statuesque teaks standing tall and proud
In the slush coconuts proudly stood there
Spreading dark hair in the moonless nights.
Here, rain happened quickly rocking moist
Coconut fronds hiding hairless sea-eagles.

(A poem which happened on the Kapady beach in Kerala)

38
Hail

Now the rains are here ,balls of snow

We catch them in our palms ready
Only they are slipping through the spaces
We cannot hold our fingers together
And our white- clouded glory fizzles soon.

39
Morning in Hyderabad

The morning slowly dries wet clothes,

Dripping, they smell of blue detergent
The house there wakes up bleary-eyed
Hesitating shadows emerge from the walls
A varnished gate, the midget of a woman
On the concrete bench, in the garden
Measuring the length of her shadow.

40
Moths in the first rains

At the dead of the night, they embrace

Their shadows on the frosted glass
The window –sill is carpeted with wings
Our entire garden walk is strewn with
Countless carcasses of one-day glory.

Last year the weather was warm

Nowhere was the monsoon in sight
These creatures crouched under the earth
With half-sprouted wings for take-off.

This season it is entirely different

These are long wet nights followed by
Rich raking of their gossamer wings.

41
The Wind

The wind blew in our direction, shadows played

It is the eyes that lacked the answers, in the contrast
At the eye of it all I knew my borders when the sun blazed
The morning sun went quickly, the noon would soon come
There was wind in the hair, my thoughts fell into the skin
When everything happened nothing actually occurred.
Up there the cosmic egg flickered beyond the trees
The blue emitted golden rays in the silky clouds there
As if I could collect all that in my past canvas bags.
Yesterday morning a little bird shrieked on the wire
My garden was full of them and below the wires
Meanwhile the loops continued endlessly in my mind
While the summer season seemed to be undecided
When the monsoon would begin in the salt water and hills
And journey across mountains and windy coconuts.
My words are silly giggling girls playing in the moon
Together they do not sing but hum like the pipal leaves
When the wind comes from across the the distant hills.

42
A gust of wind

The night advanced slowly casting

Its ominous shadows on our faces
Outside her house the neem tree shook
By the gentle tug of a dreamlike wind
Rustling through its autumn leaves
The sky rumbled vaguely in the distance
Silver lined clouds dissipated in the hills
The wind fizzled down in the stillness.

43
There is defiance in the air

A girl in white stands in a far corner of the road

Her right pigtail defiantly slung on her left shoulder.
There, bleary-eyed moms stand impatiently waiting
For yellow buses to take kids to reluctant schools.

It had rained heavily last night on the neredu tree

There was violent wind and violet rain from the tree.
The puddles under the tree were violet with ripe fruits
Mashed under walking feet in rain water and mud.

The woman takes the white dog out for a walk

But the dog pulls her sideways for sniff-sniff.
Apparently the dog has fiercely independent views.

An old man with his lungi duly tucked above the knees
Is dragging the bawling brat grandson into the house .
The three year old is defiantly dragging grandpa away.
He does not see eye to eye with grandpa on all issues.

(Events in the morning walk)

44
Images in the morning walk

In the morning walk, images slowly filled the pocket

To be emptied , on return, on to the home computer.
Two outlines of men sat in the middle of the road
Their faces turned up and their hands hurled into the air.
Chicken waited timelessly in the coop with death in the air.
On the other side of the road long shadows from trees
Played kindly with the kitschy colors of storied buildings.
Plastic pitchers of red and green waited at the roadside tap
For their turn to fill water along with bright red polyester sarees.
In the corner of the road burnt a heap of dead neem leaves ,
Their gray smoke ascended slowly to the electric wires.

45
Thinking poems

Thinking poems are autumn-falling

In criss-cross patches of golden sun,
Actually these are pallid ghosts
Pulled out of unlit eastern skies.

46
The tree pretends to be alive

We have seen lightning and a burst of thunder.

The monsoon is finally here on our fragrant earth.
The tree leaning on our balcony is facing streams of water
On its brown back without any leafy protests.

Two blue birds which come to it some times

Continue to sit on its brown branch for a while
And shout their songs against the blue sky.
The crow keeps its caws going on the branch
And continues to announce arrivals of guests.

The tree is a stump standing in the earth and the air

Pretending it is still alive but the blue birds still call.
The guest -announcing crow still caws in its branches.

47
The afternoon sounds

A lonely worker chipped away at the neighbor’s roof ,

A leaking roof between the sky and my neighbor
When the sky poured torrents of rain on his head.
The hammer-beats echoed in the hollow afternoon ,
Interspersed by a yellow-black bird’s tireless notes.
The notes came from our dead standing brown tree
Which was still hosting beautiful yellow-black birds ,
While awaiting final execution by the municipal Axe.

48
Unspent spring

In the lagoon birds sit in threes,

In black and white complacency,
On sticks as though they were there
By somebody’s design, not surely
Of the government tourism bosses.
These are the golden ships with masts
Floating about in unspent spring
Which is my wealth for this season.
An ebony body is etched against
The amorphous green of coconuts
The moist green that spills all over
My camera lens and luminous monitor.
It is the body that is ridding the lagoon
Of the water hyacinths on the boat
For stomach and more stomachs.
A little white girl crawls all over the grass
Behind the sinuous coconut tree
Chasing the white-leaping rabbit
As though she came out of storybook.
In the evening a flute plays high notes
On the sun-gold of the boat’s head
And a tabla in a red shirt shakes head
In perfect musical agreement and nod.

49
Women in the afternoon

The afternoon sun was warm and bright in the blue sky
With bales of white cotton clouds piled one on the other.
The eyes are heavy with sleep amid intermittent sounds
Of women’s laughter from the street and crow-caws.
In our childhood our eyes were heavy with sleep in the afternoon
With alternate sounds of pounding of rice and crow-caws.

50
Our village home

Our home was soft corners, diaphanous shadows,

A ghost-home tamarind tree of dark midnights
That used to shed many tiny leaves and bird-twigs,
A well deep in darkness and shrieking night crickets,
A wet coconut rope slithering on its stone rim.

The water shivered on its perked up surface

At the dark touch of the dimpled metal pail.
The pail got pulled up quickly spilling water
To the banana which squealed with green joy.
The thorny fence wound its way in the moonlight
Quietly disappearing in the hillock without trace.

51
The hillock with a hole on the top

We squatted in our river, our heads above the water

And our folded legs firmly on the bottom sand-bed,
As the bottom sand pulled away we held on to the bed
And looked over the waters, toward the far reaches of space,
Toward the triangular hillock with a hole on the top.
There was long ago a circular monastery where the hole is.
The water here smelled good, as we took it to our lips.
It smelled of the distant mountains of Orissa, our river’s home.
Our ears echoed with the boys who jumped into the water.
The brass pitchers of the women on the other side came floating
As they were filling with brown muddy water till their rims.
Beyond the brown stretch of waterless river were the boats
That stood waiting for the passengers returning from the fair.
Some times we played under the cashew tree on the hot sands
There were yellow fruits, on which hung kidney-shaped nuts
Yellow fruits half-eaten by the birds, that smelled so fragrant
Mom says don’t eat the fruits which are not good for your throat
But mom, said we, they are so fragrant! So delectable!

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