Pour another one

The first leaf blows on the pavement.

The sun tilts a little in the sky.

An official makes a statement.

People sleeping in the open die.

Somewhere the heat’s still incandescent.

Deadly shells and grenades still fly.

A supplier firm eyes the net percent.

People at sea cross to drown and die.

The world is just one continent.

The razor wires are sharp and high.

The public elect their government.

People, breathless at borders, die.

Expandable

It has its own pockets in the backpack

and carries its stuff quite independent

of what you might want – the old cobbled lanes,

the bridge over the darkening blue-black

river at dusk; and petrichor; the ambient

shapes of trees weeping softly in the rains.

It’s one of those bags that unzips down its length

and expands to fit in all manner of things -

stuff you thought you’ll never need again:

a foreign square, the citizens out in strength;

the lilt of the azaan as it parts the evenings;

a public bath awash with laughing women.

Each departure is a rehearsal of sorts

for the final one with zero allowance;

you sort the stuff, prioritised, precise,

pack just the tent and its vital supports.

You shed things as you go in accordance

with the scriptures and what the wise advise.

Yet in some pocket of memory, or flesh

a small coin, some stubs of minor events

are overlooked and travel everywhere;

what you thought you shred tumbles out afresh

and the morning’s raw with what it represents

to trash it again is more than you can bear.

So you put it away again in some flap

where it won’t obtrude or escape meanwhile;

thrust it deep behind some or other task.

The minutes move in tiny tip-toed recaps

and your eyes are moist even as you smile,

but you say, “It’s nothing!” if someone asks.

Try it

You can.  Fall in love with anything -

a voice, a certain slant of phrase.

A dark velvet night-sky sequinned

with stars, the drape of galactic lace.

The calligraphy of dancing rains

on the fronds of the smallest fern leaf;

the gentle fingers of light on pines,

the clouds a chiffon handkerchief

ringed round the sliver of the moon.

A vagrant waterfall kicking

up pebbles and spray in the monsoons.

You can fall in love with anything.

Step lightly

Turn then to face your own light, so shadows

fall behind, and wherever the path goes

uphill, down, or peters out, stay the trail

even if the odd constellation fails,

even if the coppery moon never glows.

Paths and poetry both come to an end,

words fall and shatter, useless to pretend

otherwise, their edges sharp as broken stone.

Step lightly into yourself and go on,

turn up that wick that can’t be darkened.