Eight Bars and One Window

*
One window and eight bars
cut into eight parts
a coconut tree, and peeping from behind it,
a leafy jackfruit tree.

Some bird calls.
Some kid bawls.
Some plane crosses.
One day’s done.

**
Between Khajuraho’s statues and Bastar’s figurines,
a vase of pens.
On this window-sill, see the whole country.
Wait,
Don’t forget, even the puppets of Gujarat
hang from these bars!

***

If this was not a window
Would it be a picture?
Then the leaves wouldn’t move
The birds wouldn’t sing
And I would be not on the inside
But on the outside.


****
I’m behind the window.
The window’s in front of me.
Is that the same thing?

*****

A house in front of the window
A crane on the porch
Wings open, neck stretched
Wants to fly in the sky
But
Claws stuck in wet cement:

I felt restless

******
Beyond the window, a house
Beyond the house, yet another house
Beyond again, perhaps a valley
with wind like a bouncing ball
that leaps up and lands in here,
through the window

The window, and I
started to laugh.

*******

As soon as the window opens
my held breath stirs.

********

The taste of last night’s dream
persists on the tongue.
I want to narrate my dream to the window
But as soon as I open my mouth,
my dream slips out
and hangs on a branch like a ghoul.

My very own dream, now outside the window.
While I’m inside.


*********
People are being banished
from their homes.
People abandon
their homes.

It is not the fault of the window.

To move out
You need a door.

**********

Leaves, trunk, tree...
lost in the darkness.
The window’s awake,
Hopes to be the first to see
the morning light.

************

She draws a picture
of a masked
armed man.

Then she tears up the picture.
This is how she takes revenge
for the murder of her friend.

Her anger has gone
out of the window.

************

He doesn’t want to rule
a kingdom.
He wants to rule galaxies.

He doesn’t like bars.
He doesn’t mind windows.

*************

A loud flap of wings.
I looked out of the window and
saw some fallen wings.

I looked in.
Where did my wings go?

**************

Father loved this saying:
“When an ant die, it grows wings”
He said this whenever our dreams
seemed ready to take-off.

***************

Today, as soon as I open the window,
Many sayings rush in.
I take a good look and then
toss them in the bin.

I never knew when
they had come in,
crossing boundaries.

Two sets of eyes are
staring at me

**************************