Caged

Caged

I am the boundless sky
I am the infinite space
I am the changing hues
in the cloud waves
yet, my soul is caged.

I am the burning sun
I am the roaring wind
I am the endless horizon
that can never be chained
yet, my soul is caged.

I am the rising flight
I am the soaring heights
I am the swelling sea
and the surfing waves
yet, my soul is caged.

I am the seamless spirit
the being of being
I have no boundary
nor a bondage
yet, I am, oh, so caged!

©

Within and Without

K. Krishna Das

The smile on the periwinkle
is the joy of the entire spring.

What fills the drop of rain,
fills the entire ocean.

And that little breath
that gasped through me
was the wind that toppled the tree.

©

Poppies

Bharati Varrier

The day still simmers

for all its burnt out summers

in the night's embers.

©

[A tribute to poppies fallen on the asphalt at sundown, this ekphrastic haiku was first published in Spillwords.com. The photograph was clicked by Bharati Varrier.]

Golconda*

An era lingers,
at times hides,
at time reveals
in the long corridors
of light and shade
between earthen walls
of grit and gravel
bound through time
by ethereal nostalgia;
history breezes
through the passageways,
spirals up the domes,
falls back in echoes,
clings to the arches
in an eternal scroll;
memories sparkle
in jewel-like hues
amid the rubbles
of a recalled bazaar –
an era caught and trapped
by layered ramparts
wanders at ease
in the labyrinth
unhurried, unworried
of the fleeting centuries.

©

*Golconda Fort, originally built in mud and later expanded using granite, is an over-500-year-old fort in Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The fortress city, during its golden era, used to be a centre for diamond trade.