A faint yellow rose
Waving as I pass
In the early dawn
Don’t cry insects
If you meet
Snoring gray clouds
Deep in the air
Is the paintbrush
Of this slow river
Tag: nature
Lady of the West
mournful squall
sinking into the pebbles
on the riverbed
the moon
under flying dragonflies
even my footprints
are long gone
Morning cold
Water drops
on burning rocks
early morning
your fingerprints
painted with night rain
Fish food
breadcrumbs
a koi’s gulps,
insomnia
under the stars,
fireflies arrive
even after storms
Morning Glory
daybreak &
the butterfly’s bed
is my door handle
it must have come far
wading the rainfalls
of silence
A hunters grief
Not hubris but lament
As an arrow is drawn
And a great stag is felled
My fingers working
Noting, as the image on the fold
Is written down
The magic in the eyes
Is the price
For a great creature
To be mine
Lingering heat
smoke from the fire
only a drop of wine
rolls along
smoke from the fire
a mountain’s shadow
lies gladly broken
Toad song
A toad! it looks like
a wayward pebble
the grasses gleaming
gawking at flowers
attached to nothing
a flower opens
Night river crossing
The pebble stones glittering
Weathercocks swooning
Quickly it rises behind them
Amidst the mango leaves
Like a tattered curtain screening
Brighting all the empty sky
Drifting easy, silveriness coiling
A serpent with luminous scales
The moonlight and river meeting
Diamond droplets melting down
Tender reverie, immense, cool
River breeze, two hands glancing
Heaven & Earth
Never marked by sunbeams glancing off hilltops
Shower after shower leaving behind greenlight
Hiding their crests in dishevelled tree tops
Lurid shimmers behind the tresses of clouds
Steaming vaults of black and blue serenity
The dense tide of a coming monsoon
The mire dallying in water and an older season
Rijul Ballal 