Ode to the Dancing Tree

​If it sways

in tune with the wind,
I would call it a tree

with conviction...

Toward the music in the storm,

the rhythm in the dust

it kicks up,

our powdered egos.

Oh, indeed what we need

is conviction, a bit of honesty.

The world craves such follies,

to save itself from radios,

and speeches of bearded supremos,

Sundays, weekdays, every day,

while we seek corners where 

there is music, and also some silence.

The trees have stopped their dance,

the wind is but a tired labourer

trudging home,

after a toil for relevance.

It is monsoon, 

but these seasons hardly matter.

Yet we long for the rush,

some melody, and some stillness.​

-- Leslie Xavier

Ode to the Lost Rain

​These scents don't tickle,

I miss my sense of smell​,​

​numb to petrichor​,​ 

​I miss its taunt, its poetry.

Spoilt ​by ​​a big city in a slum​,

I hardly hear the Purple Rain.​

I watch the ​shower, still,

gauge the drops,

feel the whiff,

let the mist ​kiss my soul,

and my memoirs remind me

what it meant to ​dance in the rain.

It is but life,

laced in moisture,

from tears, both...

of those who are parched,

and those who are drenched in love.

Behold the duality... 

... In the scent of the rain,

in its scant disregard

of propriety​:​

A lout for many,

west and east coast,

​while I hear a faint, lost song.

-- Leslie Xavier