DAILY PHOTO: Scenes from Bidar Fort

Introduction to Myth Making [Free Verse]

From the hilltop,
  one can watch nature reclaim:
 green grows up the glass,
 tufts sprout from each crevice
  and the man-made world is crevice-laden,
 one seed blown into a mortar crack
  will become a wedge --
   a sprout that splits stone.

Concrete and steel prove
  digestible:
  time, water, oxygen,
 the enzymatic requirements are few.

Fungi blooms from a pile-full of dung.

I don't know whether it's a desirable meal,
  whether our trappings & vestiges are
  haute cuisine,
   or merely a meal
   of convenience.

This place was once with us.
 Now, it's hidden so well
  that it's become a myth,
 a once firm and tangible thing --
  now invisible & conceptual.

Nature swallowed our world
 and farted our mythos.

Growing in Stone [Haiku]

from old stone ruins
grow hardy weeds, raising
flowery heads skyward.

Losers, Finders; Nester’s Blinders [Sonnet]

I ventured beyond civilization,
   and (by man's definition) I was lost.
 I knew no near city, state, or nation.
   Who knows what backwoods borders I'd crossed?
 I'd drifted down streams: still and rapid tossed,
   and when boat filled faster than I could bale,
 I took to foot. Onward at any cost!
   I passed over mountains and through their vales,
 and trudged the badlands, unparted by trails.
   But he who's lost is often he who finds,
 and I learned history's forfeit details
   in form of ruins in a sheltered blind. 
 Oh! What novel and beautiful sights
   are had by lost souls in eternal nights!

DAILY PHOTO: Bhubaneswar Temples Near Lingaraj Mandir

DAILY PHOTO: Ruins by the River, Pune

Taken in March of 2023 in Pune

Dust in Cracks [Haiku]

the old fort wall
is covered in plants that grow
from dust in cracks.

Overgrown [Haiku]

a building's corner
 shows like the edge of a face,
  under a tree's coif

Nature Reclaims [Haiku]

a tree grows
out of stone ruins -
not so ancient