Lone cloud
Flies its own pace
Giant manta ray.
Tag: nature
Insect life
Lady Bug
Holds fast a leaf,
Surfs the wind.
Human weather
On cold, windy, stormy nights,
Windows thump, rattle and beat,
The rain so quickly passed,
Like thuds of a human hearts.
Time dissolves
Too rare are my visits here
Where the city’s still
And every surge and pulse
of cloud and air you hear.
Feel free in your impulse
Where only birds trill.
Sunlight Monkey
In Tulu we call them Muuju.
Birds and trees
Listening
To the rythm
Of bird calls.
Hilltop Slope
Red and green when bearing fruit
Yellow during the flowing season
Many wild guests on that hill
And in my memory always the same.
Bat tree
On the old banyan
Are bats still waiting
For a waning moon
And the insect buzz
Around street lights
To consume the night.
Firefly
In the night beyond the walls
where we labor unceasing
with our echoes of meaning,
far beyond the empty urban sprawl
further than even the stars
and yet close to the humming cars-
an unperturbed quiet.
Rijul Ballal 