The poetry of a croissant moon dipped in an espresso sky dusted with powdered sugar stars will enter the bloodstream directly, and begin to sing. Operatically. A pick-me-up to be slow-sipped at your own peril. Imbibe, and you risk lying awake all night. Buzzing with the beauty of the universe. Do not say you were not warned.
Author Archives: Pavithra K. Mehta
Waking Up to Rain
The poetry of waking up to rain is more elaborate than any alarm clock. Up on the rooftop raindrop paws. An ashen sky is wrapped in gauze. Strong fingers wearing diamond rings drum your windowpane. Voice of dawn sings soft and low and shakes a silver mane. This day is lovely, dark and deep, theatrically it feigns to weep. To reel you in with charms of seep, to steal you from the arms of sleep.
Trains
The poetry of trains stops young children in their tracks. Rounds mouths into lowercase o’s of delight, lifts dimpled fingers into urgent pointing position. Steel dragon devouring distance. Whistling like urban banshee, streaming like unstoppable sentence across the landscape. Full of rush and rumble and the exotic allure of elsewhere that tugs the human heart. As sure as silver moon reels restless waves to shore.
Spun Leaf
The poetry of spunleafmoongriefallinglightlyglowingbrightly… red leaf ballerina-spins alone towards the ground. A perfect moon drifts into view it makes no sound. My noisy heart must learn to fall with that kind of grace. And to witness this world and its grief with such a shining face.
Seagull
The poetry of seagull is the poetry of suspension. Anachronistic Christmas ornament hung from a branch of spring sunshine. White-winged sliver of moving stillness. Grey-tipped punctuation mark parachuted into Time’s rambling sentence. No snowy dove with olive leaf this bird, so full of raucous hunger, profanity and competition. Yet surprisingly capable of peace. As we too might be — if we could only learn to rest this way. Briefly and utterly in the blue palm of a quiet sky.
Rising
The poetry of rising is the poetry of upward mobility. It belongs to the sun, the moon, the mythical phoenix, hot air balloons and don’t forget — bread baking in the oven. Also paper kites, rattling elevators and the fluent rush of steam from a tea kettle. Superman in his red cape. Not to mention hope — the thing with feathers — that cannot be grounded like a plane at the San Francisco airport (no matter how thick the fog).
Maybe
The poetry of maybe is first cousin to the poetry of perhaps. Kinsmen hailing from the clan of IfnotWhen, congenitally incapable of ever making a promise. Bred from infancy to sing in the low, sweet tones of an untroubled ocean. In whose depths possibilities and their opposites swim like shimmering schools of fish, back and forth through doors that are never fully open or shut, but always left ajar.
Old Houses
The poetry of an old house often speaks without meaning to — like the body of an old man. Generously visited by the rumbling intonations of congestion and indigestion. Parts rattle, creak and wheeze as they please. Full of interior conversations; disjoint, cheerful, vaguely embarrassing and in polite company, largely ignored. But no different really from the wind rifling through the leaves of the trees at night. A nonchalant pickpocket whistling under his breath to the tune of lost time.
Surprise
The poetry of surprise speaks in the vivid springtime language of bulbs. A daffodil-sudden assault. We believe in the sure ground of the familiar, forgetting it is rigged with trapdoors that drop us slickly into the fertile depths of wonder. The head is confused but the heart knows enough to skip a beat and the breath to catch, when the wild beauty of hummingbirds darts into the frame of a dusk window, when red umbrellas flip inside out in the rain. When renegade moments break loose from the predictable march of calendar time to color our lives unexpected and real.
Bells
The poetry of bells speaks in rich tongues of summoning. A pealing appealing, designed to interrupt our tendency to stand and graze. Because life was not meant to be chewed moodily like cud. A ringing stretched taut across the sky hauls us up like bucket out of the deep well of our forgetfulness. Wakes us gently from the mossy stupor of misplaced priorities. Returns us to the central tasks we have grown so gifted at putting off: Breathe. Listen. Love. Again… yes now Again.
The Poetry Of 