Late Evenings

It's a mad, mad wind that blows tonight. The lower branches of the neem tree, margosa, agitate first, when the upper branches remain still. After the slightest lag in time, the neighbourly sagwan, the teak tree, begins to sway and then, the swirl of the wayward wind hits me. An incomprehensibly bleak sky lets down a few drops. A slight chill and surprise at the growth of the jasmine bush, which is almost as tall as me! 

It could rain early in the morning for wide swathes of steel rimmed clouds hide the blooming stars 

What have I to say to you
When we shall meet?
Yet
I lie here thinking of you.

These are the opening lines from a poem by William Carlos Williams. Dr Williams was a medical doctor apart from being a modernist poet and I came across his Love song just by chance.

And here is Pathways, by Rainer Maria Rilke - 

Understand, I’ll slip quietly
away from the noisy crowd
when I see the pale
stars rising, blooming, over the oaks.

I’ll pursue solitary pathways

through the pale twilit meadows,
with only this one dream:
You come too

Finally, a Japanese poet Otomo Na Yakamochi, sounding remarkably similar but in that quaint Japanese manner -


From outside my house, 
only the faint distant sound 
of gentle breezes 
wandering through bamboo leaves 
in the long evening silence. 

Late evening finally comes:
I unlatch the door
and quietly
await the one
who greets me in my dreams

Elgar's Cello Concerto is said to be synonymous with Jacqueline Du Pre, but this performance by Yo Yo Ma of the first movement will surely leave you dreaming..