September

Last month the blackberries in Wiltshire were lush. Competing with the bees, popping them into my mouth within one second of picking them. Thorns or no thorns. Chemicals or no chemicals. Forgetting to take any home. Feasting on the juicy little blobs, licking my purple fingertips, not bothered by the juice forming maroon dots on my yellow t-shirt. That was ecstasy. Big thanks to the hidden roots of the blackberry bush, the wind, insects and bees, the soil, the birds, the people who planted it, the sun, and the changing seasons.

For years we have witnessed the fullness of the ash tree behind our house thin down to a bear skeleton in the autumn. It stood naked through the winter. Come spring, it was fulsome again. We came to think of it as our friendly live green screen. It beautified the views from our windows and was home to so many birds that woke us up in the morning. Three years ago, our neighbor hacked one branch off, saying it was sick as it was dropping heavy twigs in his garden, unprovoked. Over the last few years, it’s been dwindling. No leaves old or new for the past two cycles. Now we wake up to a skeleton of a tree and an eerie silence. No birdsong. A few crows and pigeons. That’s all.

Yesterday, we watched on sadly as two tree surgeons with helmets, chainsaws, ropes and harnesses methodically chopped off one branch after another. Within a few hours all that was left of it was a neat round flat surface slightly raised from the ground, with many fine irregular concentric rings. In the space above this stump my eyes fabricate a ghost tree every time they look.

It must have risen from a dark cold earth, God knows when. In reaching toward the sun, it was majestic. It had a quiet dignity and poise. It knew how to gracefully let go of old forms of life. It balanced the perennial energies of the winter and spring within its living bark. It was a wise old teacher, hospitable towards new forms of life. Standing still, it showed me the meeting point of two journeys – the path inwards and the road outwards.

(Inspired by a passage from Eternal Echoes by John O’Donohue)

Fall like snow on tall peaks

Posted by kidsaregifts20

There are laws followed by falling things

not humans

but things cannot determine the conditions of their fall

humans can.

Since childhood I was advised, if you want to fall, fall inside the house. ie. not outside

ie. fall onto the letter but escape from the envelope

ie. fall into the eye but escape from the glasses

ie. escape from words but fall into the meaning.

I, of average height could not have fallen more than five and a half feet

but how high was that?

My falling is not coming to an end.

The reality of falling things is revealing itself to me

in the middle of my 70th decade.

Look around and observe the falling of things.

fall like the snow atop glaciers from where sweet rivers erupt

fall like a sip of cold water on a dry throat

fall like drops filling a clay pot with music

fall like a teardrop in someone’s sorrow

fall like a ball amongst children playing

fall like the first leaf in autumn making space for a new one in spring

for if there’s no autumn, there’s no spring

fall like the first brick in the foundation of a home

fall like a waterfall on a turbine setting its fans in motion

fall like light on darkness

fall like sunlight on moist winds, making rainbows.

But stop.

Up until now only rainbows have been drawn.

No arrows have been drawn from rainbows.

So, fall like an arrow of a rainbow

onto barren earth and

cover it with flowers and leaves.

Fall like rain on parched land.

Like a ripe fruit,

fall and offer your seeds to the ground.

My hair has fallen.

So have my teeth.

And my vision.

The shells of memories continue to fall.

Names. Dates. Towns. Faces.

The pace of blood-flow in my body is falling.

My temperature is falling.

Why are you still standing, Naresh?

Before all of your existence collapses

for once

make a decision about your fall,

the correct cause and timing of it, and fall on an enemy

like lightning

like a meteorite

like a warrior

like thunderbolt.

I say, fall.

An excerpt from a poem by Naresh Saxena. (Translated from Hindi, by me. It is customary for Urdu and Hindi poets to insert their pen-name into the last verse of their poems. I enjoyed the instructional tone of his voice and the ebb and flow of all his metaphors.)

Like this only.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

I guess only in India we are talking like this sometimes. But you are understanding. So, it’s okay. If the weather is not kind right now, it will change. We will pass through time. We’ve got to have patience, like the trees. No kind of weather is lasting for ever. The autumn ten years ago, I thought would stretch past eternity. I was wrong. How little I knew. It changed many times, inside and out. I wonder how many other things I was wrong about.

Equal night.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Vernal means relating to occurring in the spring. Fresh or new or youthful.

Yesterday the light and dark equalized for the first time this year. Today has pulled a little more light over to its side than Yesterday. The Earth’s axis tilting as far as it could and the Sun shifting to meet with it, like lovers under a warm blanket on a cool night. The soil awakening, the snow melting, the birds singing a little bit earlier in the morning, as if on cue. The leaning and longing of the oncoming Summer taking root here, now. The round shutters of our pupils readjusting, recalibrating. The underground murmurings of tulip and daffodil bulbs, the fluorescent greening of the tips of the trees looking forward, looking upward, rising in love.

The end of one thing, the inception of another. The old continuing as new. The same Earth, the same Sun, now in a lighter role, in a brighter mood, curating space for a distinguished guest to sneak in. A shy new bud on a rose bush, a fresh tender heart-shaped leaf still half-folded on the Anthurium, a long-tailed black bird strolling on the curved spine of a green coconut frond, young green mangos picking up the redness of the Sun.

It slinks in as a cup of fresh mint tea, a phone call from a long-lost friend, an old photograph of my grand-mother. Sometimes as a spell of utter silence. Sometimes as the whisper of my breath. Joy chooses me and shows up in unexpected places, patiently waiting to be recognized. Acknowledged. Embraced.

Come October.

Posted by kidsaregifts20

Such slashing-sloshing wetness that the roads can’t take it. Such a dense grey blanket overhead that the light-switch needs to be flicked on before brushing my teeth, early in the morning. So windy that the umbrellas are bending and twisting into funky shapes, not fit for purpose. This has happened before.

Leaves starting to morph into colourful blades, beginning the descent of their curtains from clean pristine branches high up in the air down to the messy wet Earth, departing the very same points from where, not so long ago, they had sprung. This has happened before.

Some globules of rain clinging to the outside of the window pane, a crescent of heaviness at their lower edges. Quite still. Others making a dash down to the ground with quick wiggly lines disappearing behind them. The glass pane, an alive fashionable frosted sheet of artistic dots and lines, dancing. This has happened before.

This planet, tilted to perfection on its axis, keeping precisely to its orbit in accordance with the laws of creation. Doing what it was made to do. Billions of clumps of matter scattered all over the limitless expanse of space, each on its own path, own trajectory, appearing out of nothingness and then sparkling out of existence, unnoticed. This has happened many times before.

The tenth month is here again, at the cusp of two seasons. A climate of colours and shadows. Its steep, slanting sheets of light illuminating the trees in their sheer nakedness, foreshadowing the arrival of the dark. This too has happened before.