Letter to No One

The end of the day and the minute’s crash together, the hours fall like dominoes

Midnight rushes in to the vacuum, swallowing the waking hours

Just then, in that brief pause between chaos and silence

I add up the days

Sometimes the days stretched like elastic, appearing invincible

Laughter and friends walked hand in hand across time

Those are remembered like roses, full blown and eager

Precious as rubies, those days

Lately the days have weaved in and out, warp and weft of my life

Carrying news on the hours, cloaked in apprehension and fear

Everything in my world seems destined for change

A tapestry in darkest of hues

Cresting the minutes, biding the hour, here I find you, no one at last

My hand stretched in welcome, I bid you come in

Sit here beside me, lost in memory’s dark grasp

Together we’ll ride out the storm

Sunset Over India

In hues of red and rich gold the Sun sets over India

Eagerly she embraces him in folds of purple and indigo.

Soon I take to the air and ride the clouds

Looking earthwards at India’s rich tapestry below

The green and gold of crops and rice paddies

The distant glint of water catches my eye

And below me her majestic rivers serenely flow.

Back home to familiar and much loved people and places

I travel – soon to reunite with those from whom I’ve been apart

Returning to the country of my blood

Leaving behind the country of my heart

Friends both met and unmet crowd my mind

Some so familiar that meeting them went unremark’d

Others elusive, just out of reach: this was not our time

And still more new and unexpected, delighted to find

Across culture and language we could understand

A common love of life and love of India, and the land

Brought riches to our lives, offering friendship’s hand

Farewell, beloved country, Indra’s exquisite net

Enfolds you in a myriad soft and velvet threads

The Northern stars sparkle like diamonds

In your soft lustrous ink black canopy

Sensual, spicy perfumes fill the heavy air

Snow decked mountains dream of heroes past

This image I will keep in my heart until at last

I step upon your treasure-filled shores again.

Standing on the Edge of My World

Feeling suddenly alone and unsure

Here I stand on the edge of my world

Chaotic at times, always moving just too slow

Fitting things in, moving things round

Always too little time, too many places to go

Things never done, friends never seen

Meet them in the Mall – how have you been?

Now the trip 35000 k’s alone

The stark mountains of Ladakh

Echo in my mind, forbidding grandeur

Sweeping grey moonscape mountains

Stripped down, in a fighter’s stance

They rise in revolt against the elements

Drop into the lakes and plains

Clouds tumble in the frosty air

Ominous, threatening

Etched in mind’s eye after just a glance

Time caught in a wasteland of eternity.

Standing on the edge of my world

Ticket in hand, apprehension

Squeezes the heart with icy fingers

A land of riotous colours and contrast

Threatens to consume my courage

Exuberant nation, a cacophony of sound

A medley of people nearly a billion strong

One of a small minority in my own land

Cross the world and I’m like a grain of sand

How to cope amongst the teeming throng, alone?

From the tip of Africa to India’s plains

The majestic, magical Himalaya sail the skies

Monsoon rains will plummet earthwards

Dying shattered on the earthy ground

I go from the depths of winter’s cold

To Delhi’s steaming streets

Adrift in a city 14.5million strong

The clatter of the train jogs and jostles me along

Lofty Kanjenchunga will smile on me once more

Then the endless rhythm of the track

Soon in the frenetic capital I’ll be back

Another Himalayan Valley on India’s other side

And here I’ll know if the search’s end I’ll find

In the calm and exquisite silence

The sharpened sword might cleave my mind

Is this the Assassin for whom I long?

The Mists of Mirik

Enchanted lake of quiet delight

Water still as glass the soft secretive

Sound of the paddle-boats dulled

In the blue-clad mists of winter’s approach.

With the faintest whisper Summer

Departs leaving Autumn as her surrogate

And the cool mists creep up the foothills

Making their slow way to the Himalaya

Wrapped in shawls the rich brown women

Laugh, the sound falling like leaves,

Swallowed by the waters of the lake

Reflections like shattered glass

Horses mill and turn, led to the gallop

By the Nepali Indian boys bravado

The drumming hooves echoing over water

Racing the lake to reach her head

Silently the majestic conifers tower

Into the sky and lie across the water

Mirrored green and dreaming boughs

Cry into the still waters

A swirl of activity, a sudden swish,

The glassy surface broken by a myriad fish

Fed for luck and good fortune by those

Hurrying to market

On a tree-decked island sacred red

Glimpsed through the veil of trees

A woman in a bright bird-like sari

Guards the Deity enshrined

Girls call and giggle, laughing

As the horses and the boys ride

Ever faster around the sacred lake

Flirting in the face of custom

Peace and harmony precede winter

Mirik in all her many moods

Mist lying thick, caressing the water

In my dreams I see her still.

Surya Crimson-Decked

Surya decked in red and gold sinks languidly into the Gangas’s embrace

And covers her in jewelled hues of opulence

An all too brief flash of fire, crimson staves off indigo Night

Downstream flow a million hopeful souls

Waiting for Nirvana

Two small boys row upstream in perfect silence

No need for voices in the red-gold afterglow

The taller boy dips his oars silently feathering

The water, gold dripping from the wooden shaft

Deaf and mute he travels in silence

With rubies, garnets and gold Surya pays homage

To the Ganga, showering her with his adoration

Gently flows the mighty river, caressing

All she touches, her touch soft molten gold

Now Surya lies enthralled

Passion spent, the glittering Sun God’s strength

Ebbs with the River’s delight; as she slips away

Indigo night steals upstream, Surya vanquished

Plunges beneath the tranquil waters and

Dies another death, another day

The Indian Boy's Birthday

Two days married in the Land Of His Blood

Denied by his family, misunderstood

Standing alone with a brand new bride

How much I missed being there

How much I cried.

Destiny decrees our paths and our lives

But sadness still crawls in and clutches

With cold fingers around the heart

And the tears flow unheeded

At being apart.

But a few short hours ago it eased

The good times came back

And the strength that he gave me

Through all the times of adversity

Now I can thank Destiny.

I drive the car, see eagles in flight

Say the prayer that he taught me

Whisper Om Mani Peme Hung

Now he's gone is the time

They get done.

The friends I have made

The strength they impart

Being there and holding the space

Respecting and easing the pain

I thank them from my heart.

Today on his new day, 30 at last

Starting a new life so far away

Memories come crowding the mind

There are things he will smile at

Now lost in the past.

So thanks for the love and thanks for the time

Two years went too quickly

Who could have known

The heartache, the laughter

Would leave one so alone.

Yes, the smile is now bittersweet

But now no longer the tears

The joy freely given, lasting for years

A gift beyond price

In this lifetime and and all others

We are destined to meet.

Packing Yesterday Away

Sealing boxes, closing doors

Life’s secrets put away to store

The muffled thud catches at memory

The crash of the door slams behind

The good times and the bad

Another chapter of life lived and past

Storing all the things that couldn’t last

In the corridors of memory

Decked in cobwebs of Time

Sealed with the sealing wax of used to be.

Like trinket boxes filled with recollections

Time’s compartments overflow

Jewel-encrusted days flown by

Strung on the silver thread of memory

Say thanks for what we had

Joy, laughter and the tears

Suddenly I looked back and found

Time had gone, days turned to years

So here I am, left only with today

I find myself packing yesterday away

Slam the lock, close the door

Memory’s not welcome any more

The years that stretch ahead

At best will still be shorter than

Those which have gone before

Friends who have enriched my days

Brought colour and love to the tapestry

Life’s warp and weft, sadness and joy

The eternal Flickershow; we laugh and cry

And, all too soon, we part and die

On High days and Holy days

I stride through the quiet corridor

Of times gone by now lost in memory

Turn the moments over and recall

What each one meant to me

Precious then and precious still

They tramp the path of long ago

Golden, glistening, kept in their thrall

Rainbow colours hold the mind’s sway

Again I find I‘m packing yesterday away.

Surya Streaks Across the Azure Sky

Surya sailing in an azure sky,

Indra’s net a glistening canopy,

Saraswati rides under Indra’s bow

Seven colours swathe the goddess

In their heavenly glow

The ancient river gone from view

Her course now mapped by satellite

Proving that the ancient lore was true

Born of the Himalaya, the abode of snow

She sacrificed herself to the Yamuna’s might

Lord of the Sun stalks in Tiger’s form

Soft footfalls pad past the innocent

In his amber eyes frozen for all Time

That which is caught in his gaze

Light and shade formed by Surya’s rays

Strength and stripes a golden glow

Indra now in giant cat’s disguise

Transforms the landscape

Before our very eyes

The world each day in his power lies

Ravi calls at dawn to Mother Ganga

City of light his eternal treasure

Indra’s bow shoots the golden orb

Across the awestruck indigo sky

Holiest of cities Varanasi sees his flight

Protector and life giver is Surya

As he drowns each night in the Ganges

Do Tigers walk on water, do they ever lie

Their penetrating gaze distilled sunlight

Legend frozen now forever in Indra’s eye

Thus it is that Mother India’s image

Make a collage of the patterned Earth

Jewels garnered from the net of Indra

A pantheon more diverse one cannot envisage

Surya gives each riches of unimagined worth

Few I know can hold the river, quickly stem her flow

Had Saraswati been caught in the Tiger’s eye

Her pure waters would have seemed to crystalize

And the goddess more solid than the rainbow

Surya would have gifted this to those of us on Gaia.

The Tiger on the Hill

In Darjeeling's beautiful foothills up on Tiger Hill

An ancient gate guarding the four directions stands there still

Protecting the Spirit of the Tiger under Kanchenjunga's gaze

In this land where once the Tiger and the Snow Leopard

Clashed in combat over dominion of the Land of Snows

Hidden beyond the icy majesty of the Himalaya.

But, deep within the country's denizens the Tiger

Still holds sway, capturing the heart and soul

Of those brave enough to walk his solitary path.

Look in their eyes and the glint of the Cat

Stares back at you, harsh, imperious, regal.

The soft footfalls walk on the edge of your heart

And your soul rests uneasy as though the whisper

Of some primeval, alluring sound is calling,

Enjoining you to follow, abandon all caution

And conviction, light-headed in the Tiger's wake

Silently the Tiger takes his due, homage exacted

At your cost, and claims his freedom once again

Then leaves as the dusk and the fallen leaves

Cover his presence – what dream was this

The failing light brought to my eyes?

But soft upon my heart the Tiger's footprints burned

And in my soul the first chill wind of the past

Begins to blow – the Cat passed through here

Borne on the Winter Wind in search of Summer's delight.

The Dream Of Might Have Been

Did they say a heart could break for “should have been”?

I don’t recall that they warned that dreams could impale and kill.

The slow massacre of hope nurtured in the invisible unseen

How merciless is the force with which Karma can apply it’s will.

Relics of my smiles lie strewn on the stony ground

Happiness and innocence qualities that Truth saw fit to impound

Dream the dream of might have been

Sing the song of hope long gone;

What is it about reality that cuts so close to the heart?

And if you’ve never really met, can you ever really part?

The stories that we tell ourselves fiction of the first degree

Weave the cobwebs of daydream and imagination entwined

In our minds we capture the hearts of those we do not see

Suddenly Reality’s sharp claws reach out to render us blind

Easy conversation and joyfully imagined camaraderie

Crack and shatter leaving dark emptiness behind

Dream the dream of might have been

Sing the song of hope long gone;

Waves of common sense batter the dreamer’s door

The ghosts of might have been lie broken on the floor.

Set the scene for happiness of every imagined kind

With drops of blood sacrificed from every pore

Bid farewell to the joyful shadows in the mind

Beyond the knife-edged hope you can return no more

Caught in the amber of most treasured memory

Each remembered word slowly loses veracity

Dream the dream of might have been

Sing the song of hope long gone;

The knight of Reality cuts a swathe through dreams

Sacrificing my fairy tales; fractured spoils of war.

This is what there is and there was never more

So easy to say and to believe that you are sure

Come the day that reality claims its prize

Now I see the world with someone else’s eyes

So once again life has proved me wrong

What’s for me a dirge is now some else’s song

Dream the dream of might have been

Sing the song of hope long gone;

Reality once full of life is now so empty-seeming

The kaleidoscope broken, no more indigo-dreaming

Requiem for Summer

Autumn and the leaves are falling from the old oaks like tears

These foreign trees the heritage of our colonial past

The fire-ravaged mountain will carry the scars for many years

But the dry dust and soot swirling in the wind will not last

Already the soft green follows the season’s first meagre rain

Another week and the fire lilies will stain the ground like

The blood of all those creeping, crawling things that perished

In the turbulent and vengeful beauty of the flames

All the trees of my ancestors cry blood red leaves

Their mourning clearly audible to anyone who believes

That the soft and chilly wind catching their tears

Holds on her breath the tragedy of all the years

Fire has consumed both nature and the living in her path.

In just a few weeks the blackened bones of tree and bush

Will stand as stark reminders over the beauty of the veld,

Decked in her finest as the flowers and grasses rush

To declare life once more in the land of the dead

Yellow, white, azure blue and crimson red

The clouds fall over the mountain’s cliffs and, laughing

Rise up in the sky, tumbling down once again

And, heedless of their broken promises of rain

Vanish in the cool blue sky leaving nature to

Echo the swallows’ keening cry as they prepare

Once more to the lands of my forefathers to fly

The nights draw in, hiding the mountain’s shame

Now the blackened earth retains just a memory of flame.

It’s in these days that the dry rustle of departing leaves

Echoes in the corridors of memory where the departed dwell

And a soft litany of names is chanted by the autumn wind as she

Catches my breath in icy fingers before dissolving in the sun

Charred memories stir like the dead trees in the breeze

The soot and dust of time eddy round their once sturdy trunks

Soon the spiked green hands of grass and eager joy

Of those blooms that flourish after fire’s devastation

Embrace the last tendrils of summer’s shining legacy

And the mountain will emerge anew with the first winter rain

But the dead trees of my forefathers will never rise again

Consigned to the past by government decree

Like old relationships they now just live in memory.