Q & A

What colour's your poem? she asked.

I said,

mostly blues and greens, some yellow, some red.

Like twilight - maybe a shade of lilac –

some of it fluorescent, some grey and drab

and some parts dissolved small town mud track,

silvered power cuts with a few dabs

of starshine.  Lost fishhooks on dry riverbeds,

waving heat haze and groundnut pyramids.

Some lines white, some unavoidably black.

What colour is your poetry? 

I replied,

some quite see-through, like rainfall on the wide

lit savannahs, on which the long grass feeds

and grows its shadow, neat corn-rowed mornings,

windows missing louvres of glass. Low-speed

smiles, bright swimsuits flashing in the hot springs

in deep forest. The negative space between

points of bison horns, the dragon fly sheen

of streams. And some as opaque as safekeeping.

Shades of Orange As They Came Apart

I didn’t notice things – the colours of lipstick

for instance - she wore a shade between peach and brick;

dotted in her scarves too, the whole range of  orange

woven in her skirts and art, and in her magic.

She wore the deepest henna, that burnt tangerine

between her fingers, on her knuckles; dark, crushed green

staining her palms pumpkin-warm, climbing vines, blossoms

on her pulse in light apricot, and nectarine.

She fed me ripe oranges, taking them apart

tenderly in her palms, like segments of my heart;

she prised my world, eternity and each minute

wide open with her hands. The taste of that tart

sweetness remained, each segment a sunrise transferred

from her lifeline to mine. The fragrance remembered

as first sunlight flames on water.  The formless gains

shape as darkness ebbs. Undying preciousness, coloured.

In her rooms the walls are orange blossom, rugs gray

rainclouds, an ancient magazine and the doorway

fall open like her hands.  I shut my eyes, notice

the shades of orange in rust and dust, mild decay.

This is the final version of a poem I created for one of the prompts during the MOOC I did over July-August.  (Did I tell you there's talk of an anthology being compiled with some of the works that were created there? Watch this space)

The assignment was themed on Elegy and Memorial.  I thought I'd post it here today with thoughts for the families who have lost loved ones to terrorism in all the places that touch my heart, and life. 


The season's changing out here where I am, though the temperatures remain high, they are slowly softening. Much of this region of course has two seasons - hot and less hot, but my brain and body are still attuned to the Indian six. There's a cleaning up of the skies back home about now, lots of fluffy clouds chasing off the heavy dark monsoon ones, the festival season starts in less than a month.  It's a particularly beautiful time of the year.  'Sharat' we call it in Bengali, there is no English counterpart available, it's not autumn yet, a pre- or proto-autumn is more like it.

Here too, the plants which had been singed to cinders during the summer, are greening back to normal.  Flowers have their happy faces on, the leaves are plumping up.  I have been writing more, learning more, blogging a little less than usual, but the blog's going to green itself back to normal as well. Things are changing outside and inside. My year so far feels like an adventure and a gigantic blessing, which I suppose are synonyms really. 

I hope your year, and month, is going well too.

Colours everywhere

The sudden splashes in bowls; and beads strung

in an old shop; bushy headed carrots flung

into a bin, crumpled candy wrappers;

and someone’s rainbow load of laundry hung

out far across the road; small, flapping hands

of winds on the red silk cotton blooms; brands

stacked on store shelves; slippers outside a door.

I’ve travelled far in search of foreign lands.

Happy Holi/spring, whichever you are celebrating today!