Disorder (Poem)

Dis(order)

Everywhere
I 
Go or drive
Everywhere I 
Wearily walk
Or
Leisurely stroll
Immersed in endless thoughts
Or
Silent quietude 
Trying to watch
A flycatcher here
A bumblebee there
Or, a winter black butterfly
Feasting 
On Arka (Calotropis) flowers
Then
I am shocked with
The spectacle of outrageous
Dirt, debris, irritating air
Pollution (AQI*) all around following me
It’s there in many Indian cities
At all places without exception
Even the
The outlaying village suburbs
Suffer too; they
Are not spared either.
Yet -
I did not notice
This much of manmade disorder
In my youth
Nor the menacing troupes
Of 
Mosquitoes with bloody thirst
In the hot tropical southern states

 
When I return
To the cold Northern Latitudes
The air is clean
The skies – with an eye piercing bluish dome
Here too
During my walks 
I
Am pained by the careless
Wayside trash on the roadside
Empty
Marlborough packets, Red Bull cans,
Cigarette butts, Fiji water bottles,
Tiny bottles of spirit

Soon spring will 
Bring a plethora
Of 
Roadside cleaners,
Rotary Club volunteers
Or
Local school children
Meticulously collecting the 
Wayside trash.
My eyes do not perceive
Disorder
In nature, in the interior woods
Or
On the banks of desolate streams,
Waterfalls, or the meandering creeks
Of the now abandoned Erie Canal

The backyard is strewn 
With fallen stumps
Decaying tree branches
Heaps of last season’s autumn
Foliage with pinecones, hawthorn berries
They’ll soon become nutritious
Compost for future ground cover
Or, silky moss
Bringing out wild geraniums, trout lilies,
And bloodroot blooms
…
After decades of 
Hard working 
Environmentally conscious citizens’
Contributions
Now
The communities 
Try to bequeath
Clean water, pure oxygen-rich air,
And 
Fecund fertile topsoil filled ground
To
The innocent, yet to be born
Future generations.

What an invaluable treasure
This healthy ambience
Of
Verdant gorgeous nature?
Not everything in the world
Need be touched by modern man
Nor it needs to be accounted
By penny pinching bean counters 

Copyright 2025 by the author

*Air Quality Index

Pious Prayers (Poem)

Pious Prayers

Aren’t these pious prayers?
Not earnest enough?
The little sparrow
Had to crawl underneath the car
For a lick of freshly made cool water
Below the a/c compressor

Yesterday early morning
A thirsty crow was
Tapping the skylights,
The translucent convex domes
For cool condensed mist drops
A tiny few at most!

In desperation the neighborhood crows

Are nibbling the Staghorn sumac cone

Fruit drupes even in the summer -

Normally reserved for the hard winters

The stream, near the cataract
That too has dried up
Hardly there is a trickle

You see flow only after persistent drizzles
In the lean summer months
Now you see no current –
And
I miss the music of our
Backyard falls, its meditative murmurings
A soothing
Hushed lovers’ conversation in the night

My great grand father would
Have performed yagnas – on command he could 
Call the benevolent Indra – Prajnanya
My maternal grand father too 
Was a simple, self effacing reader of the
Vedas – that perennial fountain of dharma (धर्म)
No, not the misinterpreted phrase “dhamma/damma”
Found in modern dictionaries or eastern religious treatises 
Outlined in a foreign European tongue - English

Dharma as instructed in the three Vedas
The original mode of human conduct -
It is meant to uplift one and all beings (souls)
And gently guide them towards
Real enlightenment; that was
Way before the modern Maslow!

Now, with a few Sanskrit phrases
I can utter, say a bit haltingly
Prayers to the thirty three crores (of) gods
For a simple cool summer shower
I need them for my Gardenia flowers,
Lawn, sacred Basil (Tulasi),
And Okras

The local farmers too need them
For sweet corn and vegetable crops
The deer, birds, and playful squirrels
Rabbits too need them
A respite from the hot dry wind
Won’t you bless us with
A silky carpet of Jasmines and Dianthus
Govinda?
Your name itself is – Narayana
You seem to float on
A veritable ocean of fresh water

(Dedicated to all the weary drought stricken people walking miles for a pitcher of fresh water across continents. This poem was originally penned in northeast US during a long dry spell in summer. It resonates and finds relevance in the very dry arid regions of Rajasthan, south India, and even the coastal Andhra. And many other dry regions all over the world.) Copyright 2025 by the author

Winter Vacation (Poem)

Winter Vacation

Upon our return from
India
We discovered

Not three inches
Not six inches
Not one or two feet
No, it was four and (a) half feet
Yea, it had to be several feet
Of hard crusty snow -
A mix of freezing rain
And frigid snow
Like multilayered chocolate cake
With interspersed frostings
Hard unbreakable icy frostings
But all white in color;
Crystals of pure water

What is the point of 
Studying hydrogen bond 
In a dry lecture hall?
You learn it 
It gets into your bones
Into the sinews
When the age worn
Hands struggle to break
With steel garden pointed shovel
The ice boulders
And wearily lift the heavy
Loads of Crusty Snow

Lord Siva must have smiled
On this devotee
I have to seek pardon
From Ganga mai
For hitting Her hard
With cruel metallic blows

But what could I do
I had to make way
At least for the minivan
Everything got stuck -
No groceries, no milk
No doctor’s visit
Everything frozen, totally standstill
Surrounded by icy walls

In that little space
Call it driveway
Or car park
We’re trapped for almost
Three full days

Yet
I have no hard feelings 
About the celestial downpour
Of pure white angel dust
It is really white pure snow
No acid rain here
Just pure yech-two-o

You can drink it directly
And you can use it
For indoor plants, for misting
Or in the steam iron

In between shoveling
I stood silently
Wondering 
Will this mountain of snow
Ever be finished?
That’s like asking the philosophical 
Question: “Will this mound of 
Accumulated karma ever dissolve away?”

Copyright by the author 2025