run

Like huge udders, heavy and sweet, they hung blocking out the sun.

The wind was a trembling sheet of light on the water's surface, as I sat on the red brick walls around the old 'ghat'. The dry moss, brittle crusts of erstwhile prosperity, prickly against my thighs. The shallow stretch of water in front of me rippled hysterically, quivering in anticipation.

Away in the distance the horizon disappeared as the wind started to caress the dark udders, and then seduce them, and then they broke sprinkling their load in a mist of engulfing whiteness. the water started dancing in ecstasy, singing, prattling, breaking into thousand droplets on the surface as they came.

leap now. off the leaf and into the water.

off the wall, on to the ground and run ... as the wind rises and rushes, pregnant with drops of manna that wets everything... the water, yes, even the water, the ghat, the brick wall on the edge, the dead moss with seeds of hope hidden in their brittle skeleton, the dust, the land, the yellow grass, my heels, my shirt, the back of my head.

wet.

old

over a dead tree
the lightning screams
my friend's home.

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the water's edge
a rainbow curls
around my heels.

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her mascara it ran
with the mist of early morning
the night in its last throes
spun the darkest hour
trickling from the pool
in her eyes.