By: Paarmita Vedi

Grandma and the Memories of Octobers

A dense foliage of five auburn Octobers
Specked with dirty honey-brown nuts.
On and Within.
Daadi picks them up in her straw basket.
Her soft dimpled feet kiss the lush crimson leaves.
Leaves in sinful scarlet and caramelized canary,
leaves with edges dipped in velvety maroon
slowly fusing into Tuscan-sun splashed near the midrib,
leaves with veins- intricate and delicate
Like the detailed artistry on Makrana marbles
during the glorious extravagance of Mughal Sultans.
Daadi’s sterling silver anklets,
decorated with tiny garnets
and dangling sonorous bells- clink and tinkle
with the crushing of the leaves.
As lurid leaves above with sheer laminas
sing a melody of joy amidst the monotony of
sorrow sprawled in the dry wind.
Daadi picks a leaf and asks for its colour.
Why so dangerously red?
Its beauty looks ominous, I feel.
Instead, I say- feuille morte.
And look at the branches above. Wispy clouds swim
In an oppressively blue indifference.
That evening Daadi loses one anklet,
A frantic search goes in vain.
Digging the ground, near the relic of those leaves,
Five Octobers later I find it.
The silver covered in caked mud.
Garnets still glow- like blazing embers of charcoal chunk.
I run, wild and fast, with my heart in my mouth.
At the door threshold I suddenly stop. I turn around.
The wind goes frenzy- whirlpool of leaves above the ground.
Feeling Daadi’s hand in mine, I see
Multitudinous embers
Of some burning pyre-
blowing up and away.

###

Remembering Spring in the North

When the storm approaches
Stand with me and I’ll stand with you.

My head on your shoulder as I stand in your sweatshirt and I gnaw on its string.
My eyeballs shake.
In the fear of creating of tsunamis.
Your fingers like seabars absorb the shock.

Your head in my lap.
The paranoia fire eating the whole Amazon.
Beached somewhere near the Bliss Bay.
Long nights taking dives in the Atlantic.
In a red little canoe, I’ll bring the sun North.

Love builds a home. A roof of hope.
A home built in the virtual world.
A hope that it transcends the cosmic glitch.
If the world ends, hold hands tight.
The gravity inverts. In the sun we sublime.
Together.
The cosmos in our hearts
Emit interstellar dust.
Falls back on Earth between Moonflower twigs.
A new fragrance.
Similar to the scent you left.
It smells of You. It smells of Hope.

This hope takes dives in the Atlantic.
Purple Sassafras bloom in Greenland.
And somewhere in the Rockies
Bluejay brings the Chinook.
Green Colorado pastures
Dotted with white cows and silk black horses.
The birds take dips in the azure above.
‘And everything is green and submarine.’

###
 
Sharing Soulship with my Best Friend

Prancing across perpetual Meadows.
Pockets spilling plucked wildflowers.
Throwing terms of endearment.
Like ripe apples. Utmost urgency. Blink. Seconds.
Magic Island and melting topaz.
Seaglass and seashells.
And crashing sheets of the sea.
A silver stroke on the canvas of shadows.
And a zenith lunar bulge. A guiding intuition
To help out with a terrible idiosyncrasy.
Palms painted with words ‘I love You’
and some invisible sentences.
By some author.
You and me. Not money or property or sex.
Instead, a shared agreement to keep going.
Not titled as “couple”.
But integration of laughs and jokes.
Mutual mourning for not being articulate.
Or eloquent. With words.
Damn. Losers. And again, laughs. Winter afternoons and school lunch breaks. Gone.
Sadness and regret and fears.
Sinister red lipsticks and black nailpaint.
And March gloom painted in Van Gogh’s blue.
Trace an old itinerary. Years of Memories.
A season that unites you and me.
Glad to live in a world where there is You.
October love.
My perennial temptation.
To keep blooming after every fall.
Here’s to you
My October Obsession. My crisp blue sky
And dawn of autumn. Oaks and maples,
Marshmallow evenings and your brownies.
Saffron and russet of some oil painting.
Acoustic guitars and wild Norwegian Woods.
Here’s to you- my everything. Here’s to us.
The soulship.