I
Were you with me when
a slow darkness gathered
overhead
and then rest came
upon us like a silent rain?
Did you see me at noon?
The time when all things rest,
all things old and all things dead
and the dust upon them,
a time when they sleep
upon the earth like stones
polished by rivers.
***
II
High in the north of a city choking,
far from the halls of kings who are blind;
a red glow dancing with ashes blown
of those who had lost and those all alone,
and those that the city did not care for;
those who had gone away and come back,
so far from home that their names are lost;
the summer breeze dances with them
in the red-hot air that smells now of death,
they will just dance till tears run dry,
till all of the pain is just a memory;
they were not dead when they couldn’t breathe,
but soon they will be when the city awakes,
and forgets that they ever lived;
here where they came and will always return,
will always return
will always return.
***
III
It’s another April’s end
when the breeze is warm
at the six of dawn,
but you are still asleep;
I thought to write to you
just to see if you’re better,
I hope you are
but even if you’re not
there’s still today
and all our life,
the breeze will wait
he has nowhere to go,
there’s at least
this song to sing.
***
IV
It began as a whisper
among sleepless crows
and I watched it rain
all through the night
on stars in their dust;
I heard them cry
and saw their tears
running down window panes,
they write their names
in the falling veil;
It rained all night
and it’s been a while,
a wall of colour melting
in the trembling streets
and the world a softer place.
***
V
It is but a brief romance
between the bee and its flower,
a few days at best
before the centre dries
and the petals die;
but the bee comes still
every hopeful day
and dances her dance,
she wiggles and she waggles
and waits till another blooms
and loves that one
just as much;
as though they were the same,
as though they smell the same;
maybe they all tell her
the same stories
of how their leaves
ate the sun and drunk its tears,
the secret to waiting in the mud
till the time is right,
the alchemy of how to make
nectar from nothing more;
And so, she comes everyday
in hope of an everyday love,
and as long as the bee believes
and her wings don’t drop,
there will ways be
flowers to love.
Sunil Rajagopal is an amateur birder and photographer based in Delhi