Buttery mellow evening
slathered across the city
enfolded in enigma
hundreds of feet below.
Tranquillity tossed with
windswept dreams
against a preening sky,
That slowly dabs her cheeks
with hues of pink and mauve,
Checking herself out in
smoky lakes underneath,
Like a coy girl setting out
on a first date.
The azaan glides out
from minarets far and near,
Rending the stillness,
Rippling in the soul;
Dollops of divinity
dripping through the dusk.
And now the city lights up,
Hopes flickering to life,
One after the other;
Thousands of concrete lives
sprawled out beneath us,
Like earthen lamps set
afloat on a swarthy river.
Streetlights and headlights,
Neon billboards and lamp posts,
Suspended afar in the velvety darkness–
Disembodied voices from the past
singing silences of yesteryear.
Pyaar, ishq, mohabbat…
Fireworks burst upon the firmament
in colourful melancholy,
Love works in ways you cannot fathom.
Rooh, ashq, maut…
How would it be
to float off this edge,
to the lights that beckon below,
Like a feather waltzing in the breeze,
A petal swirling down a stream….
Love is not for the weak-hearted.
Tender is the night,
She yields no answers.
