Windows and messengers

Her post inspired me to look
out the window
And enjoy the greenery.
So I did look – knowing
No treats awaited me.

Ah! Sky! Cloudy,
Not the sign of an impending rain,
They say the roaming choppers
Chop the pregnant clouds
To save all the million-dollar constructions.
Some say they are ‘poisoned’, aborted.
Anyway, they seldom deliver – anything!

Ah! The next apartment block,
where our ‘neighbours’ live.
The windows shut forever
never frame any face,
because they had given up long back.

Ah! The narrow empty space
around our building,
Where a garden could thrive,
Where we could have some benches.
But all I can see are the ghosts
Of the industrial sewing machines
Abandoned by the cobblers all around.
Sometimes I hear the cats,
but today no cats even.

Now, reluctant to surrender,
I repeat the exercise.
Ah! Two pigeons on the neighbour’s A/c unit!
They are not green,
but they are at least full of life!

Julia, did you
send those messengers for me?
I wish to believe you did.
So, thank you, dear!

To those who build walls

I have never seen
the fluffy snow,
the meandering rivers,
the undulating deserts,
the towering mountains,
the dark depths of the oceans,
the carnival of northern lights.

In short,
I haven’t yet
stepped out of my pond.

Some day I may.

But the walls they build –
they worry me.

What if, when I’m ready
the walls are way too high?

Remember,
I have never seen them.

Dear Wilderness,

Can I be
out there
with you
all alone – just
you and me?

As the night murmurs
I shall listen peacefully.

Proud to grasp
the wind’s whispers,
I may nod calmly.

The fragrances,
queer and exotic,
sweep past
mysteriously.

And thus,
as the music
of the trees,
the wind,
and my soul
swirls and merges,
I live
I truly live.

Walk with me

Let’s walk this way. You and me. The sun will shine bright for us. The shimmering water will add a glitter to our eyes. Take a look at the flowers meant for us. We won’t make them leave their homes for us, but we’ll be there to marvel at the thousand shades and fragrances they have arranged for us. Keep your ears open to the faint soothing music of the foliage and the birds, and your skin ready for the caressing breeze. Be keen – they only serve the most sensitive, you know. Won’t we accept their invitation? After all they are free!

The life – duties, worries, plans, money –  is a light year away. They won’t come to disturb us unless we invite them and lose our minds to them. They make us sick. Consequently we end up fighting. And why should we take along with us resentment and the doubt who had had the last word, instead of the bliss , which is again free?

The sun will soon take leave but there will be the charming night. Thank God the moon is not another star. The pale light is just right for us as we glide down the smooth slopes of sleep reminiscing the blessings of the day that had seeped into us through our senses. Tomorrow is yet another day! 

‘Self propelled flowers’

“Is it possible to become friends with a butterfly?”

“It is if you first become a part of nature. You suppress your presence as a human being, stay very still, and convince yourself that you are a tree or grass or a flower. It takes time, but once the butterfly lets its guard down, you can become friends quite naturally.”
― Haruki Murakami

“Butterflies are self propelled flowers. ”
― R.H. Heinlein

“A fallen blossom
returning to the bough, I thought —
But no, a butterfly.”
― Arakida Moritake

“You can only chase a butterfly for so long.”
― Jane Yolen

“I hate quotations. Tell me what you know.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

How heartless of him! 😀

Shore of peace and tranquility

This time I will go for a cool post.

Which is the most pleasant, cool colour? Of course, green. Have a look at these shots (stock from the last vacation – I have enough to last me for two years 😉 ) and just start adoring green. The place is Alappuzha, Kerala.These pictures and the memories associated with those moments will revitalize me in the fatiguing summer. Hope you will enjoy them too. 

Long live our trees

 Our little environmentalists from grade five did their bit towards creating awareness among the students on the World Environment Day. Aren’t their posters cute?

Once again my favourite tree quote:

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb

Forest to Fuel

There was a charming rhythm in the way they walked. But in that pristine surroundings the sight of their day’s collection was a bit disturbing and disheartening. However, I should not forget that for me it was just my pleasure trip while for them it is their struggle for existence where they cannot afford sentiments towards Nature.

A few shots from one of remote hills of Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu.

Pansies for you

“There’s pansies, that’s for thoughts.”

 (Hamlet)

A German fable tells of how the pansy lost its perfume. Originally pansies would have been very fragrant, growing wild in fields and forests. It was said that people would trample the grass completely in eagerness to pick pansies. Unfortunately, the people’s cows were starving due to the ruined fields, so the pansy prayed to give up her perfume. Her prayer was answered, and without her perfumed scent, the fields grew tall, and the cows grew fat on the fresh green grass. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pansy

 March, final exams, teachers busy. (Is that excuse credible enough?)

These pansies are to tell you – “I am thinking of you, though for the time being I have just these pansies to express my thoughts!”

‘Save a tree. Eat a beaver.’

 You can’t be suspicious of a tree, or accuse a bird or a squirrel of subversion or challenge the ideology of a violet. ~Hal Borland, Sundial of the Seasons, 1964

(Therefore this time let my tree-photos ( vacation ’11), supported by the words of great people, speak to you.)

To heal mine aching moods,
Give me God’s virgin woods.
~Clinton Scollard

Alone with myself
The trees bend to caress me
The shade hugs my heart.
~Candy Polgar

The trees are God’s great alphabet:
With them He writes in shining green
Across the world His thoughts serene.
~Leonora Speyer

Trees are the earth’s endless effort to speak to the listening heaven. ~Rabindranath Tagore, Fireflies, 1928

Climb a tree – it gets you closer to heaven. ~Author Unknown

Trees are much like human beings and enjoy each other’s company. Only a few love to be alone. ~Jens Jensen, Siftings, 1939

You can live for years next door to a big pine tree, honored to have so venerable a neighbor, even when it sheds needles all over your flowers or wakes you, dropping big cones onto your deck at still of night. ~Denise Levertov

Oaks are the true conservatives;
They hold old leaves till summer gives
A green exchange.
~Roy Helton, Come Back to Earth

Trees are your best antiques. ~Alexander Smith

We say we love flowers, yet we pluck them. We say we love trees, yet we cut them down. And people still wonder why some are afraid when told they are loved. ~Author Unknown

(Can you spot a 'young' fool in the picture?)

God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand tempests and floods. But he cannot save them from fools. ~John Muir

(Not just one fool, but two!)

Trees are poems that earth writes upon the sky,
We fell them down and turn them into paper,
That we may record our emptiness.
~Kahlil Gibran

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in their way. ~William Blake

Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it. ~Henry David Thoreau, “Chesuncook,” The Maine Woods, 1848

A tree which has lost its head will never recover it again, and will survive only as a monument of the ignorance and folly of its Tormentor. ~George William Curtis

Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money. ~Cree Indian Proverb

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit. ~Nelson Henderson

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The next best time is now. ~Chinese Proverb

If I knew I should die tomorrow, I would plant a tree today. ~Stephen Girard

Save a tree. Eat a beaver~Author unknown