This is the Time

This is the time
When the harvest is over
And there is still time to sow anew

The fields lie bare
The land is distracted, stunned by the sudden sun –
At intervals, shade from the hedge –
Fallen stumps gleam
The herd grazes at a distance
And molehills
And scattered sand around anthills

This is the time
When the old remains no more
And the new remains to come

Into A New Locale

In these new settlements
Where a new house crops up every day
I often lose my way

Old landmarks betray me –
The gazing peepul,
The collapsed house,
The vacant plot where
I had to turn left,
And two houses on, a one-storey house
With an unpainted iron gate….

But I end up stumbling
To the house before or the one
Two houses after

Here, something gets built everyday
Something is removed everyday
Here, you can not trust memory
The world becomes old in a day
As though it was spring when I left and now it is autumn
As though it was Vaisakh when I left and now it is Bhado

The only way out is to knock on every door
And ask –
Is this the house I am looking for?

I do not have much time
The sky is collapsing, it’s about to rain

Is there someone I know, to see me from above
And call me in

A Poet’s Grave

(For Nazir Akbarabadi)

There are no arches, no spheres
Just a grave jutting out from the sand
As if someone fell asleep lying here
As much sunlight falls on this grave, as much dew and rain
As on the rest of the earth
And there are two trees, berry and neem

Children, lambs and sparrows hop around all day
And by evening, the whole mohalla gathers here
Sellers of amulets and laddoos of sesame
A man with a dugdugi and his bear cub
And at night, a weary beggar who sleeps beside

Inside the grave, he listens to everything
The tremors from every footfall, the movements of insects,
The sound of every particle sinking in
And the stirring of kites in the sky

A part of celebration and mourning
It is merely a grave, a poet’s grave
Where every spring brings fairs and fetes
And two trees, side by side, berry and neem

The Tallest Rooftop

The rooftop littered with dust, guano, feathers
At the top, after many storeys

You will reach it at the end of your breath
And then you will find that sunfilled roof
And you will feel for the first time
When there is no wind anywhere, there is still some here
The graying hair on your chest will quiver

At the top, after many storeys

There is silence
All the sounds of the earth have sunk
Except a movement of feet on the shore –
Look up
The sky stretched out on so many wings
The roiling air
The sun overhead
And below, water from a well

From here I can see
Courtyards, thresholds, corridors
Into kitchens even
But it is hard to recognize my own house
My own neighborhood seems unfamiliar
Like the ruins of a lost civilization

With both hands on the parapet, I peer below
My head spins
Someone drags me down
With the hooks of a jhaggar
The air suddenly thin, my vessels bursting –
This body of clay cracking in the sun
All my blood could not give life to a dying bird
I will turn into hundreds of bed-bugs, drop by drop

Maybe this is how the end has to come

Turning back to the stairs, I am scared
Someone is hiding behind the door
When I try to go down, he will make his move –
Who will listen if call for help
This tallest roof on earth, my grave

Nobody lives on the last floor,
Full of fallen feathers,
It is where the house dies

A statue is immersed in a dry well
Air incubates life on earth