Notes on Rainy Days
*
A raindrop hangs precariously at
The tip of a leaf,
Savouring its final moments
In a crystal sphere.
*
Inhale petrichor
Exhale caffeinated breath
*
Rain like silk strands falling
Through the lips of the earth,
Weaving life’s intricate tapestries
In her subterranean chambers.
*
The oriental magpie robin perches
On a black taut necklace
Strung with faux pearls and
Begins a jaunty medley.
*
The afternoon rain’s
a wrathful outpouring,
The roof suffers lashings
and wails buckets.
Post- trauma therapy
Doesn’t come cheap.
Kindred (The Sun and the Koi)
Climbing the rungs of the day,
She catches a glint
Of her own beam
Catapulting from below.
Breathless,
She dips,
Unspools past the
Willow-silhouetted roof;
Her gilded ribbons jiggling
Teeming brocade-esque
Fabrics — woven with bony plates
Of mottled red, gold
Orange and pearlescent white.
Then muses to herself-
Kindred, you and I.
Didn’t they say we rise
From the same land
Or something akin to that?
As long as I burn,
I’ll be swimming alongside you,
Licking your coy languid verses.
Backyard Vignettes
*
Drunk on post-chrysalis exploits,
Who knows what might befall
At the next blink of a flutter?
Blessed are these who are
Strangers to all forethoughts.
*
Snaps shut the fan
At his rear end,
Swoops, hijacks another
In flight,
Lands at the foot of
A spirit’s shrine:
You’d thought he gathered
A pale yellow flower in his beak.
*
A gossamer-thin thread
Straddles between
Two leafy stalks on
The crown of a mango tree—
An invisible being
Save for its gilded feet
Attempts a tightrope feat.
*
A brown arthropod locomotive
Emerges from a tunnel
Of dried leaves mound;
Chugs across a sandy track,
Cautiously evading a sparrow
While readying to pull
Into the woodlands border.
*
A streamlined adept
Threads through this
Lush arboreal sea,
Leaving leafy splashes
In its wake.
Then emerging from a crown
Of sun-speckled wavelets
With a starfish leap
Onto the cable wire—
Galloping away
Like a miniature racehorse
To its next port of call,
The upturned tip of its tailbrush
Adding a phantom dash stroke
On the azure canvas.
*
The wind whistles a beckoning,
Branches sigh, launching
White bristled missionaries adrift;
Themselves their baggage,
The wind their blind shepherd.
The Swans of Lumpini Park
(Bangkok, Thailand)
Morning’s fingers have glazed
The white bevy
With a dream-tinged
Honeyed hue — an
Unruffled flotilla
Tethered to the bank;
A slice of a fairytale plot
Under the towering,
Vacuous gaze of the metropolis.
Bereft of lofty ambitions,
The swans glide their days
To the whims of their pedalers;
Evolving into oases and boltholes,
Along the ranks of
Urban repositories collecting
Shared resonances
And unbroken ruminations—
Tucked, safekept
Under the smothering blanket
Woven from the
Incessant clamorings of
The metropolis.
Country of My Soul (Marc Chagall)
“The entire world within us is
reality, perhaps more real than
the visible world.”
“Mine alone is the country of
my soul.”
— Marc Chagall
For years, I have been traversing
Across the country of my soul—
Gamboling in the blue air with
Bella by my side
And Love’s entourage
In its manifold splendour—
Vitebsk’s farm animals,
A handful of birds,
Musical instruments
And floral bouquets
(Which at times are
Gardens in disguise),
The moon illuminating
With approval as we
Float high above
The treacherous terrains of
Life’s banalities (or reality
as you would have it called),
Evading,
Its insiduous machinery that
Saws away at
Our authentic selves and
Rejecting
The regurgitated diet
From the cultural mill
Of our times.
So it is here, in the
Country of my soul
Where my reality resides,
Where I pledge my citizenship—
Which you have,
For some time,
Willfully assumed it to be
A fantastical playground for
My escapism stints.
Would you consider
Calling something reality
If its nature contorts you
Into a creature that
Violates your inner truth?
I’m calling a spade a spade,
Reality as you would have it called
Is but to me an unsavory dream.
What come may,
The odyssey persists
In the country of my soul;
Preserving a child’s wonder
And maintaining vigilance of
Pseudo-reality’s tentacles
And alongside these,
The omnipresence of
Love’s entourage,
My poetic palette adding
Love’s testaments daily
To this wide blue firmament.
Ellen lives in Thailand and enjoys going on solitary walks in woodlands and along beaches where Nature’s treasure trove impels her to document her findings and impressions using the language of poetry. Her works have been published in The Ephrastic Review, NatureWriting, The Honest Ulsterman, Zingara Poetry Review and The Tiger Moth Review.