Pallu Portrait of Gulmohur’s Gorgeousness

Thither, darling friends back home,

Preen picture perfect in status updates,

Lolling in Lockdown’s lusher ‘n’ larger lap of Nature,

Draped by dianthus’ pink or petunias purple.

 

Hither, my heart pines, O Mother Nature,

When will you smile at my micro Metropolitan window,

Caged by cold-hearted condo concrete,

Far from the promenades of profusion,

Of my Le Corbusier-esque “City Beautiful’?

 

Lo behold, one morning, my high-rise window,

Flutters ajar its eyelids to a kiss of crimson,

Like lips painted passion red, 

Planting their poutiness on her parched cheek,

The Gulmohur has stirred from siesta,

As a solitary summer sentinel unfurling an umbrella, 

Of radiant redness over Lockdown’s lonely bench,

Flanked by socially distanced skyrises,

Like Tabasco oozing out of a Subway sandwich.

 

Thither, the Gulmohur varnishes, 

The fingers of its fragile boughs, 

In a nail paint as blood red, 

As the raging fluid coursing through the veins, 

Of a bacteria-betrayed Mother Earth.

Corolla by corolla, the Gulmohur’s manicured fingers,

Unwrap the hot red fierceness of Hope, 

Against the death-like darkness of a sky,

Swallowed by an un-foreseen summer storm.

 

Hither, my unvarnished fingers, 

Of unkempt Quarantine,

Rummage into the last parcel,

That arrived before Lockdown bolted my door,

To unwrap that stowed-away saree,

As Lockdown lifts its lid in bits and parts.

 

Lo behold, the flaming orangeness and Gulmohur redness

Of its ruffles unfurl pleat by pleat, pallu by pallu,

As happy harbingers of Hope, 

Against six yards of blatant blackness!