3 "Sentimental" poems--in progress

Every now and then I have been gently nudged to write "sentimental" poems by several people. These poems are still being written and re-written. No idea when they'd be finished. But here they are anyway, hopefully sentimental:

1. Afterglow

5 p.m. Yellow bees invite blue china clouds

They forget the sun cannot light the lamp

5 p.m. You are drinking tea with honey

Inside a penumbra by the Radhachuda tree

You can wait, then bring the oil lamp out

Circumnavigate the non-existent tulaxi

The Namghar’s 5 p.m. silence will soon spew

Its tranced kortaal dueting with the khol

5 p.m. You will know that time has struck

Gooseberry shadowing the home of a dream.

(Sentiment: my parents sold off their own house in Guwahati, Assam -- where my brother and I grew up from pre-teens till we went to the university -- and moved away. Tulaxi is a sacred plant; Namghar is a worship house; kortaal and khol are musical instruments cymbals and narrow drum)

2. Morphologia

My mother’s litheness has melted

on to a lump of thin muscles limp

her skin a silken furrowed Kabuki fan

she’s not plump anymore, my Ma

those breasts once like mountained pies

now they whisper each other stories

of passion that hangs loose, peeled

her mouth’s cinnamon is browned

and her hair more jasmine than kohl

the white roses at the porch know

have seen the bloom fade, with years’ trim

and she worships more her favorite

man-god, feeds him like an infant

now that she can’t have us on her lap anymore

**

Seeing distant rivers on the TV she starts

off about the playground by the Surma

and the tea gardens where jhumur

was the first step she had learned

**

My mother's city was not her friend, she

loved it only from the Xarania’s top

by its aloof white dome, her brown eyes

mapping the Moha-baahu’s breadth

for a lore she sung us from her past

**

Now afternoons pass, evenings flower

with incense in their hearts, she lies

from the long day of her godhuli life

bundled and river-clay-soft on her bed

as if no bones or flesh make that body

it makes me utter in a nervous even tone:

"Ma will you wake up, shall I get you some tea?"

(Sentiment: my mother is aging pretty well and fast. Xarania is a hillock in the city of Guwahati, sort of a scenic observation point; jhumur is a tea-garden dance; Moha-baahu is a metaphorical name for the River Brahmaputra; godhuli roughly means 'dusk or twilight'... actually none)

3. Eight-and-a-half

(I have shared this on FB too, but feedback is welcome because this has changed some bit...)

No midnight lamp or noisy page turning

no dawn-time clanking Corelle bowls of sudden hunger pangs

no cheeky slip-ons sitting scattered pretty on my rugs

no demolished cushions from hours of crushing

no shaving foam while I pick up the morning toothbrush

no mixing up of towels or ‘oh yours smell like hell’ time

**

No fancy breakfasts, no standard lunches

no chasing the tail of time, let the sky wither

no saying ‘but I said so, and you should know ‘

no dipping finger in the sauce to taste, how cheap!

**

You were not there

so more it seemed

the dreams were truer

than their interpretations

you are back, a watermark on my waiting

no more peeking out at the Canada geese

from behind my closed window blinds.

(Sentiment: Mr. M was gone for 8 and half days across half the world... )

Image: from my computer -- My Mother.