POEM: Rush

Rushing water carves rock and clay away,
gouging out a statement in nature’s hand.
Water spatter creates a misty spray,
stinging sharply as pelted with wet sand.

A foamy ridge takes a serpentine form
on the glassy warp field glazing brook stones.
This wild water isn’t born of savage storm;
it’s the effortless effort of Zen koans.

My camera fails to capture the calm scene,
but blurs it into a tiny tempest,
transforming a mundane forest stream
into a world scarring menace.

In these rapids I see a tsunami
washing over isles of Izanami.

DAILY PHOTO: Furry Caterpillar

Taken in July of 2016 in Bangalore

POEM: Lonely Oak





I
lonesome oak on a hill



having outlived your peers



your progeny denied the light
by scythe and mower blade alike



II
it’s said you speak by pheromone
but no whiff is caught when alone
your words disperse unsmelt
lost across a manmade veldt



III
if it’s any consolation
you have our unflagging admiration
you’re the model of stately poise
to all the little girls and boys



who swing about your stout limbs

POEM: Blue

Oh, the glorious monotony
of mountain skies
an azure dome
in rare air highs
over the brome

And, too, the lake
glassy tranquil
float duck and drake
in mile high chill

POEM: Kashmir

Green, the mountain meadow
White, the wall of fog

Lakes of trapped glacial runoff —
aqua gemstones in dim light

Lines of sheep crisscross
the part lines of trail
that segment the pasture
in Cubist form

Curfew is on again,
“How do you survive with the roads closed?”
“We remember from years ago. There are ways.”

Such a beautiful place
trapped in a cycle of human ugliness

Barren gray mountains —
more than verdant pastures —
echo the Kashmiri struggle

DAILY PHOTO: Kashmiri Creeks

Taken in August of 2016 on the Naranag-Sonamarg Trail









POEM: Fog Monster

fog followed us down the valley
in a relentless glacial flow
ahead lea, aft a soft white wall
lost, the mountainous tableau



who is chased by a dragging cloud
pulled over the land like a cover?
it’s not mustard gas creeping in
just water drops caught mid hover



well, i can’t speak for one and all
but i found my pace did quicken
when sound roams free, but sight ‘s restrained
the old nerves tend to kick in

DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Loktak Lake













Taken in May of 2017 in Manipur

DAILY PHOTO: Leafless Boababs

Taken in April of 2017 in Botswana

DAILY PHOTO: Solitary Zebra

Taken in May of 2018 near Lusaka, Zambia.