Two Wise Crows sit on the edge of being:
One looking in, one looking out,
One looking into the already-is,
One at the can-be-but-not-so-yet.
Two Wise Crows sure caw a lot:
One counting in, one counting out,
One counting blessings as they come,
One opportunities as they pass.
Two Wise Crows sure know their shit:
One shitting in, one shitting out,
One shitting on contented chill,
One on the thrill of a life of dreams.
She comes up every morning now
And waves at me with open hair.
She sees me see her tie her bun
And turns and bends and lays the mat.
I’m right behind the sun and her.
I see her Suryanamaskar,
Her milky skin in yoga tights –
Too “modern” for our neighborhood,
But just the way I like to see.
She smiles and waves before she goes.
I ask myself the pros and cons.
A shoe is gone. A single shoe.
The right one, spirited away.
The left is left alone, afraid.
A sock is lying on the ground,
Awaiting washing up again.
It will keep having newer shoes,
Until it rends and frays itself.
The solitary shoe is mute,
Resigned to lose its sock as well.
For months I have been trying hard
To add redundancies galore,
Ensuring nothing important
Is ever out of backup plans.
And yet today I scrambled hard
To find a backup for my phone:
The phone that always stays with me
The one through which I manage things
The one that has the backup plans
For all the other failure points.
Of course the data’s on the cloud,
Of course the laptop’s always there,
Of course I can do thousand things
But not the emergency ones:
The ones that involve making calls
And frantic bursts of WhatsApp chats,
The ones that need me on the move
With all that power in my hands.
It’s good it was a quiet day
A day of nothing important.
It’s good somebody’s watching me
And testing systems I create.
Why seek the name of the wise,
When answers are all you need?
Why think only one of us knows,
Where exactly to lead?
If your mind’s distraught in doubt
And knows not who to ask about,
Know the wise ones may not hold
Sway over things new and old.
But a fool, who knows naught at all,
May be the one who hears your call.
One died with God upon his breath.
One killed with God within his name.
Depending on the ones you ask:
One’s a hero, one’s a shame.
No one is right, no one is wrong.
No one is black or white or gray.
An empty hand performs a sleight.
A lotus stem siphons away.
And that’s my Twitter take on them.
So, when you ask me for my views,
Remember what I’ve said before:
I do not watch or read the news.
She stands with gulmohurs in hands,
With rain in hair, a deathly stare
Into the wood that wouldn’t burn,
Into the sindoor-spotted urn,
Into the light that wouldn’t fight
Or even try to clear the sky.
She breaks her wait. To open gate
She goes and drops her urn of woes
Into the drain, awash with rain,
A redness dripping from her head
And trickling over reddened toes.
The myth, the song – they both are wrong,
Except the night felt just as long
As seven nights, without the lights
Of morning ever coming in
Through curtains of the quarantine.
She has become the alpha cat.
She whips the puppies left and right,
And when their Mummy runs at her,
She cheshires off into night.
Her inky skin is stinky clean
Her level eyes have Devil’s charm.
She purred and purred convincing us
Our bell on her was doing harm.
She jumped to scratch the very hand
I used to take her collar out,
But not till she was sure of flight
Beyond the shadow of a doubt.
No more she’s welcome at our place.
No more her meat and milky drink.
She finds me armed with chappals two
And ready if she dares to blink.
Minakhi Misra 