This Too Is Love

 

It's been quite sometime that you've gone away - 

there's a creeper growing in one of the cracks

on the ledge - rather a pungent bouquet.

It's sinking in that you're not coming back.

Your coffee mugs lie dusty with disuse.

Your bedroom slippers are neat on the rack.

Absence feels like a gently spreading bruise - 

a purple tide, because you're not coming back.

Vases and glasses wear chips on their rims,

pages crumble along silverfish tracks,

even the light in these rooms is muted dim.

A strange cast that knows you're not coming back.

I still open windows. Dust off the years.

Keep keys safe. Just in case. Though you aren't here. 

~~*~~

February has just zoomed past me. There's been a family wedding - so a mega reunion of the clan, gathering for a few days from all corners of not just India but the world. That's always super pleasant, to catch up with the gang. Cousins remain my firstest, funnest and bestest Valentines ever. 

For every high there will be an immediate and corresponding low - the offspring picked up some ghastly bug, therefore an ER visit had to be made, stressful at the time but all okay now. This too is a milestone, first time admission in the hospital. Anyway, all's well that ends well.  

As you can imagine, not very conducive to poetry-ing. However, there's no control on thinking. The thoughts come unbidden, without any respect for timing or place or state of mind - whether the aforesaid mind is panicking in the ER or teasing out the meanings behind the rituals at a wedding ceremony. Always a chance to get fresh angles to love throughout the year. Weddings can celebrate it publicly and very visibly, with solemnly taken vows, effusive displays of affection and joy, heaps of tinsel and glitz. Love can equally mean a whole host of quieter, everyday things. Long loves are mostly made up of ordinary stuff - giving a cup of coffee, refuelling the car, adjusting the thermostat because you notice the sheen of perspiration on a loved one's forehead. Just small acts of consideration and courtesy, offered freely without having to be asked.

At the wedding, a cousin of mine saw my father in my son. We talked about our loved ones who weren't present, remembering past weddings they had attended. "How diminished we are now!" my cousin said. But are we really? They weren't there physically but they permeate our life. We see them everywhere, in our children and in their values handed down. The memories are fresh, almost tangible. And we carry our departed loved ones with us into every family reunion  and into everyday dinner conversations. We tell and retell the stories they told us, hear their voices in our own and laugh again at all the same places. We keep the keys safe. Is this  not love too? 

All Season

 

A sunset may look like a sunrise,

a flat bread may look like a cake,

not all things appear as themselves -

to assume that is a mistake.

Mild winters often fool the public

into thinking it's already spring.

Remember that some leaves will wither

as the rest of the tree gets blooming.

A backyard can contain deep snowdrifts

as well as robins overhead -

call it a miracle or mundane,

birds flying in flocks of hundreds.

What's seen though is often not equal

to what you might manage to get.

Some stranger slams in from outside

and skews the whole game and the set.

Compassion's never a guarantee

that the very same will be lobbed back -

you can send all the cakes and roses

but karma's a tough puzzle to crack.

No particular time for despair -

it's an all-year, all-season thing.

Just like love, hope and happiness.

None of them is confined to spring. 

The video above was sent by my school buddy Riki Roy who lives in Alberta, Canada, thank you Riki!  

But why on earth should images of snow and ice and -30 deg C temperatures result in a poem on spring? Because it is Vasant Panchami here in India, which is a kind of advent festival observed for the start of spring.  Vasant is the word for spring in several Indian languages, it is called Rituraj Vasant around these parts - the King of Seasons, the season of renewal and rejuvenation, of planting and growth. Cusp season, love season too, as it is the wedding season in India. 

Just as a matter of info, the minimum temperature in Srinagar today, the  northernmost provincial capital  in India, is 1 deg C. And where I am much further south east, the min temps are in the 20s. 

While we prepare for spring in India, my friends and family south of the equator are readying for winter. Indo-Fijians mark Vasant Panchami the same as Indians, though their seasons are completely flipped over there, they are observing a 'spring' festival during their own autumn, isn't that piquant? Yet they have completely adapted to the local seasonal rhythms for all practical purposes, they have to. The contrasts across the planet - extreme, awe-inspiring and aren't they utterly fascinating!

Wishing you a fascinating time full of inspiring contrasts. Happy February!