On a mountain

Here in the upper reaches of the mountain
We rest on a sun-baked rocky slope.
 
How the continents must have heaved and clashed
And gentle water coaxed the valleys.
Once upon a time.
 
Now we see the land below
The trees bunched like tightly woven wool
The houses and paths and cerulean lakes in miniature.
In the silence a lark twitters somewhere.
A strand of breeze brings the warm scent of wildflowers
And the essence of time.
~

Lapwing

A silence redolent with
The whiff of linen being ironed.
The pencil point on skin is sharp.
Water sloshes in a bucket.

Join the disconnected dots
At the breakfast table.
A yellow orange caterpillar
Slowly bends
The oleanders in a jar.

Clink. A porcelain tea mug.
Now.. a chair.
Click. The door.
Sudden flap of wings.
Pigeons, unsettled on the window ledge.
Outside, the frantic call of a lapwing:
"Did you do it? did you do it?"

In circles

We tiptoe
around the rim
of  an undulation.

Circling
we follow our ancestral paths
neither of us leaving our orbits.

At times our auras touch
briefly, tangentially,
creating a frisson
of unexplored sensations.

~

Silences

Words averse to daylight

Run from mind to tongue

And then scurry away

Unable to bear the searing heat 
of the volcano they carry.

Thus are born silences;

Each bearing

The past, present and future

Of a relationship sealed inert.

The fluids conveniently never leak

And mess the designer interiors 
of cozy families.

And so the silences lurk

At corners of rain-filled streets,

Or hunker down on lonely roads

Apathy and hope alternating.

The Edge

Have you ever lived on the edge?
gulping down fear
trying hard to not look beyond
or smell the blood from your cracked feet
to keep your footing on the slippery rim
Scanning the horizon
for a careless jostle, the shove
that could send you tumbling?

One day I jumped off the edge
and discovered
there was no below.

© Alaka Yeravadekar

Between

Sometimes I live between
the purple sighs of dusk and dawn
bubbles on water that slowly dissolve
drowsy buzz of a summer bee
at the end of a hung up call

in dark matter
in a time warp

between skew lines

and then at times between
dha nee re ga

© Alaka Yeravadekar

Dha Nee Re Ga are key notes of raag Yaman Kalyan in Indian Classical Music.
(This poem published by Fullosia Press)

The crow

One morning, I slid open the window
and spied a jungle crow
sitting on a branch of the frangipani.

Through tired eyes it looked at me.
The black feathers were dull and weary.
The eyes beneath a worn grey forehead,
appeared to beseech
for a place to rest.

I looked at the bird again.
The beak was long
and curved and sharp.
I slowly drew the window slides.
When I looked out
the crow was gone.

The fossil

Yesterday,
I pulled out love
crumpled and creased

buried beneath
your ironed shirts
the children’s socks
and potato peelings
 ~