Dawn after Rabindranath Tagore

As the lightening skies strike

another day from the heavenly ledger in

your beating, breathing heart and the

echoing chords

of your heartstrings sing of

that nearing moment when your

vocal cords vibrate like the final fade of a harp

's accord, the harmony, the

rhythm of life leaving way in a fitful

final act, take heed of your mind's murmurs

hold fast to the memory of

each of these coming moments.

Monsoon after Tishani Doshi

We run barefoot/sandal-shod on wet concrete because

the rains have washed clean this

once dust-strewn street is

reborn as wet wonderland in the monsoon

rains sing on corrugated tin rooftops like a poem.

Memories after Tishani Doshi

there is nothing we own as "our"

even pictures warp as they grow old

curved and stained in different ways, fading friends

we remember as smiles and fights and generalizations, who

now have lives and loves we cannot begin to fathom, who are

walking on diverging roads as the hours keep unravelling,

even as we strain snatching at the strings, like

slipping between grasping fingers, a fairy

time turns even concrete feelings to children's tales.

Rain that can't fathom how to liberate camphor from the vaults of the earth