SAN AND THE SNOW BIRD

In an icy hamlet with a wintry fairy tale, lived a snow-bird who sang sweeter than a Nightingale.

She warbled at daybreak to a girl who always had a song on her lips and wore rainbow tiaras for hair clips.

"Who were you, once so happy and bright?

Did the dark side of the moon steal your sunlight?"

"I'm San, Neptune's beloved child

Who naively glided through wonderland mild

With a flawed cast-iron heart shield, merrily wild."

"Snow-bird cooed,"What did transpire, dear? Are you in some icky quagmire?"

"My life's a cryptic screenplay

I'm a dilapidated puzzle, jigsaw pieces all in disarray.

'Twas supposed to be my wedding day.

He never did show up on time,

When the bells at 8.30 did chime."

To the snow-bird, it was easy to discern,

That a chirpy girl had become forlorn.

Someone had ruthlessly impaled San's chambray heart, with an arrow of iron.

"With stardust in my eyes, clutching at moonbeams, 'twas my dream world.

Every kingdom had a prince charming and a happy ending, I was told.

It soon dawned on me that only the roads leading to Oz were made of gold." San confided feebly, yet bold.

"Is that why you're now so dull and gray?

Got hoaxed along the way?"

"Someone like him I don't meet everyday

Foolishly in love, I headed towards my own doomsday

Blindly trusting! Alackaday!!

Now I'm bitter, cold, heart in tatters, a dead giveaway.

Discarded, marooned like a castaway,

I want to fly away to the moon and never return...any day!" San lay huddled and defeated.

***

One October full moon, on an autumn midnight,

The snow-bird went to bathe in the Northern light.

San in solitude, sat in her nook

With lyrical words overflowing in a book.

Dear Diary, snow-bird's far away and can't hear me straight away.

I'm scribbling away in you like a popinjay

Hopelessly lost in a maze, looking for an exit--- thisaway, thataway.

Had I lost my wits, putting my emotions on display?

I've been constantly knocking my head since, for fine dust to drop out, that belongs in...an ash-tray!

Realization dawned too late, to my utter dismay

I thought I would be cherished and loved with, "San, you're mine for keeps! Hurray!"

Instead, his mockery was on high. Why did he betray???

San sighed and closed her diary.

***

Snow-bird sensed her pleas and wails.

Sluiced with lightning speed through winds and gales.

In its beak, clutching an ingot from the Tundra,

In the nick of time reached the hamlet, to give her the gift from the Goddess Aurora's amphora.

Then, magic happened one summer.

San fell in love with books---hook, line, and sinker.

She sat down at her computer

Like an amateur scriptwriter

Bled her memoir, which became a prize winner.

Now San's an explorer

Trying out genres thriller, sinister, heartbreaker.

Asking everyone---Will this nosedive like a disaster...

Or skyrocket as a blockbuster?...

Snow-bird smiles benevolently at her like a trusted friend forever.

Comments

IRONCLAD

I trudged through withered bracken and the frosted winter parade As ice-storms swept across a barren, icicle'd glade A hushed midnight and the gloomy woods were bathed in a dull pallor of the gibbous moon Melodies lamented and moaned an endless, melancholic tune ‘Twas a lone walk through pastures of wilted blooms Solitude was a friend in the summers of honey breath in the deep green woods Swept away by the currents or blown away by the torrents As twilight lazily rested on hillocks and in the amaranthine dells Like a laden cloud I cascaded down when the load was a dead weight I had gathered pieces of myself and strung them together with a parched wreath Pensive was the boon of listening to rumbling whispers Like a dimpling stream I flowed and carved my own trails Like the ocean arose and crashed to write my own fate, Letting the sun guide my way and the moon shine on my rugged path Now I ask all the pulsing stars to sing of my struggles, The forests to hum...

SAPPHIRE POOLS (DAY 3, POST 1)

Glinting sunlight off jeweled pools of sapphire Shimmering in the vast aridness of coppery fire Fringed with a viridescent canopy of trees fig and fronds of palm A sanctuary for birds and animals to splash about, it's a soothing balm Scorched and parched, my soles trudge on the sun baked grains Seeking respite from the bleeding crimson fireball, stranded I remain Mounting sand dunes, slipping, tumbling, sinking Scraped and raw, peeling sunburnt skin Veils of illusion lifts from fleeting dreams and hollow shine Fading hues of paradise around reduced to shriveled creepers and withering vines Imperial silver puddles on blazing bronze sand Deceived again by the phantom of the parched land Visions and charms swirl like a mist under a chrome moon Conjuring sprites of the desert weave mirages of oasis and lagoons Sailing across a barren horizon are walls of crystal waves No water lilies and wild roses unfurl under these mystic skies. ©️ Sangeetha Kamath Pic Courtesy: Pixabay

HOME AND HIBERNATION

And out of nowhere came this madness to wreck mayhem in my already topsy turvy world! Tickets back to Singapore were initially booked on the Chennai transit (why of all the cities?) Because of the shortest layover I could muster, given my still delicate health conditions and which was never even an intentional choice in all my 23 years of travel to and from Singapore. This had to be it even though I was on unfamiliar grounds. But Luck seemed to have a mind of it's own and turned its back on me when Fenjal decided to crash bang in the middle of orderly events, a day before my intended day of travel. When destiny's favorite child was shielded by Baba and his blessings, even Luck had to bow down and retreat in haste. **** Roused from my siesta with a sense of a peculiar dimness and chill , a far cry from the usually sunny and blinding brightness of humid Mangalore, I couldn't help but have that niggling feeling at the back of my mind. Checking on the flight updates for IXE-M...

REGALIA OF THE SNOW QUEEN

The jewel studded tapestry puts on a show of icy spangles on the winter sky grand The chiffon bathed dunes of porcelain snow, shimmer under the rime spires of willow wands Wild winter rasp strips down the trees to their gnarly bones With eyes of steel she glares at you from her icy throne From pale cornsilk dusking skies float powdery snowdrops Crisp, quivering wind glides over a silver laminated pond Through the hawthorn and the aspen, on the frost tipped swards In the gentle ivory light, the firs and cypress are sheathed in blankets of ice On a primrose sky, December sings her soothing lullabies The moon is a burgeoning opal rose rising with a sizzling sigh The shadows are long and the silence is deep Not a footfall of a nuthatch or a chirp of a wren through the eaves does seep Bending pines and crackling birches, Hickory logs burn in fireplaces Fragrance of cinnamon and wood-smoke… and cocoa…and cedar! Midnight suppers of Hazelnut coffee, apple strudels and coconut ...

WINTER'S TALE

Winter’s aria glides like a gauzy gossamer veil Over the pastures, brooks, valleys and dales Gold and silver flecks pirouette in a frosty serenade Snow adorns the eaves, picket fences and the glade With holly twigs for arms outstretched, gazing with my lifeless blueberry eyes I long to be at the table laden with warm food and delicious toffee pies Across the brumal vanilla whisper, gleams a wonderland of diamante sequin The birch and oak laden showering me with clumps of snow, a roly-poly mannequin The door bursts open and the children are back Squealing excitedly, they plonk around me making snow angels and a round track Tamping down toy rails and setting on them trains, locomotives and engines They dress me up in a tweed jacket and a woolly hat, on my scarf is brooch of a silver bell that chimes Voila! Now I'm a station master holding red and green flags A smile has been carved on my face and stuffed with slices of red velvet cakes Joy abounds as I soak in the jambo...

Sangeetha Kamath

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