Summer

Summer, the season of a blinding sun

Indoors and cool lemonades-

The half empty streets of Rajasthan

And the nocturnal desert serenades.

Summer, the season of warm whispers

Of a damp wetness all around

A room littered with glasses, jugs and sippers

A shrivelled face covered in a shroud.

Summer, the season of scorching mystery

A dried wrinkled face without a name

The martyred leaves of every tree

The tortured and torturer at their game.

Summer, the season of yellow memories

Of small girls running in pig tails

cool shadows under sunny stories

or waiting for the ancient snail mail.

Summer, the season of evening breeze,

Magic Norwester’s thunder shower

Walking under bougainvillea trees,

Reading the thoughts of a lonely sunflower.

© Nandini Basu.2010.