above the traffic
floating on the wind
gulmohar petals
baskets of piled guavas
on the street corner
spring cleaning
I stack away my memories
in the cupboard
so hard to sleep
thinking of tomorrow
an elephant
strains its ears for rain
in the baked foothills
each grain of sand
moistened by the wave
* * *
each passing year
brings more candles
and fewer people
as molten bronze
shapes the dance of Shiva
with frozen fingertips
he talks about
his sunny sky
over and over
that voice, those words
times like this
it feels as though my veil's
become transparent
at the other end of the world
someone I touched
the well greased
revolving doors
of the stock exchange
lighting the ancestral lamps
as days grow shorter
bathed in moonlight
Tso Mapham gives birth
to a great river
inner chaos so stark
as autumn deepens
* * *
early morning jog
the sun rises sooner
than expected
my eyes on the frisbee
as it leaves his hand
grandmother's diary
falls open
at an empty page
behind monsoon clouds
the stars are slowly shifting
a shadow-play
on moonbeams, as we listen
to raag malhaar
in and out of puddles
laughing kids kick ball
a Triparshva Renku by Norman Darlington - Ireland
(lead poet)
Kala Ramesh - Pune
Rohini Gupta - Mumbai
Bhavani Ramesh - Mumbai
with a guest verse adapted from the 3rd century
Old Tamil poet Kamayanaar
Verse allocation:
Norman Darlington: 4, 11, 15, 22
Kala Ramesh: 2, 6, 8, 13, 18, 21
Rohini Gupta: 1, 10, 12, 14, 19
Bhavani Ramesh: 3, 7, 9, 16, 17, 20
Kamayanaar: 5
A Note on the Form of this Poem:
Renku is a collaborative poetic form originating
in medieval Japan. The now better-known haiku
historically originated in the opening verse of
the renku, and all of the great Haiku Masters
such as Basho were first and foremost Renku Masters.
Renku is written on the principle of 'Link and
Shift', whereby each verse must link to its preceding
verse, but should move decidedly away from the
verse before that. The resulting poem is non-narrative
in nature, but rather reflects the idea of poem
as mandala, cosmic exegesis, or some other metaphysical
expression of "unity in diversity".
All renku must contain certain elements (each
of the seasons, love, the moon, blossom) in variously
fixed positions, while the opening verse reflects
the prevailing season and environment. This renku
has been adapted from Japan's four-season temperate
climate to accommodate India's classical six-season
calendar.
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