Still Alice

First went the words
Dropped here and there
Like the orange leaves
On a crisp Fall afternoon.

Then names
Who was the chap
That brought newspaper
On Sunday mornings?
Name of the little village on the mountains
With white-washed churches,
One hundred and two people,
And two hundred and one sheep?
And the math teacher
Who taught limit going to infinity?

All of a sudden
Lapses in a melody,
A cherry missing from a cherry flan recipe,
Almost like a lost beat.
And blurry unfamiliar faces
Eating dinner at the same table.

I am falling into oblivion within myself
Where words fail
And silence speaks.

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There are times when I need you the most

There are times when I need you the most.
Like when the snow glistens
On the empty branches,
And the bird feeder that is of no use
Softly sways on its wooden pole.
Like when the rustle of leaves
Catch every unspent moment.
Like when a lonely poet
Returns by the steps of Dhansniri,
And I hear you playing Ramkeli for him.

These are the times
When I need you the most.
And then there are others
Like when words cannot tread
These many layers of ice.
So I keep them,
Wrapped in a banana leaf
Waiting for the April showers!

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Why I stay up late

I have a glass house on my wall
Its windows are Mediterranean blue
Its chimneys are green meadows
And in the center of the house
A little girl holds a bouquet of daffodils.

I have a planet on my ceiling
Its continents play a single flute
Its rainforests blow the canyon horn
And on the planet
A Santhal man and wife dances red.

I stay up late
To hear time tick tocking on the glass house
To smell waterlily on the planet
And to give space to my shadow.

I stay up late
Because
The unsure decimal
Doesn’t know
Where to rest.

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