Here's to...

When nothing makes sense, when all that reaches the ear is the buzz of political jabberwocky or the static of AI voices sounding unnaturally confident, a walk through the village of Chinna Mudaliyar Chawadi in our neighborhood always feels calmingly surreal. Children laughing down the road,  women huddled up over a conversation, a stew of rice and lentils cooking in charred pots placed over wood-fire outside homes. 

...aroma of sputtering spices, a hint of tamarind escaping into the dusky air.

Effortlessly do flashes of scenes slip in alongside a collage of memories buried under a dusty layer of time:

Here's to cranes furrowing aerial trails

and to irises gorging on blue 

to shadows skipping on pebbles and

to violets shaking off the fall'n snow

and here's to the naked pigtailed boy 

with anklets and kohled eyes, tittering 

twiddling a twig, womenfolk gossip

and gurgle; here's to the crow 

diving into the setting sun, catching

the gold, the silence and the sound

of bells from evening prayers

beads from a rosary flung across the sky