at night my thoughts grow teeth sprout wings and emerge to preen they collide and crash slow dancing me into one bloodthirsty scream tangle and fall apart tooth-marks on my shoulder rendering sleep a distant dream.

without you  morning walkers at the Lakes would be arrested for jay-walking without you every stranger on the road would be guilty of stalking without you  the kosha-mangsho I make would lose all its zing without you even the stars would not have a song to sing without you faces would stare out of my…

  Your eyes follow me rather sternly in the Bar Library where I sit quietly from where your picture now hangs, your absence has been made present. I can pretend the half smile I see playing about your lips the gold of your voice that I hear ringing in my ears aren’t just fragments of…

Within weeks of my marriage, I was a mother. Even I did not expect it. I entered my husband’s home with a head full of dreams, a heart full of hope and a minor trepidation of being saddled with a host of relatives that I hitherto did not have. Like many a newlywed, I too…

Today a cousin sent a message that took me deep into my youth where children ran rebellious and free in their delicious little roles. I was transported to another world years away from where I sit picking away at the keyboard as life picks at us..bit by little bit. I’m flooded with thoughts of people…

I have a confession to make: I am not one of those people who see babies and go ga-ga…no angelic motherly feelings are roused in my breast when confronted with a snotty baby… bells do not ring, music does not play and my dreams are certainly not sprinkled with baby powder. Let’s face it: I’ve…

Dearest Baba, My hands are empty. I have not bought you anything, not even a cake or a childish painting…. My daughters, (your grand-children) plan and whisper… they are so excited Father’s Day is coming! I listen to them and nod encouragingly, feeling some of their excitement rubbing off on me. Just some. Not enough….

Feeling naked and cursed I reach for solace and find it in the memory of your words in your smile that tiny bit of you I have saved like fairy dust… Pinched between my fingers.

Dawn tip-toes in leaving curls of mist in my hair… Soft drops of dew on my lips and skin as I surrender… I have searched for you everywhere among the pines on every ridge, in dreams and restless wakefulness. I have felt the weight of waiting: like chlorophyll absorbing light I have inhaled your memory…

This year, like the last, I participated in the A to Z Blogging Challenge. This year I had a theme: Food, Glorious Food! No it’s not just a boring old collection of recipes and stuff. I’s got some of those, true, but it’s also about my personal associations with various food… you know, things that…

My fascination for the big cat crept upon me very quietly and unexpectedly as I was painting one day. I suddenly found them enchanting … all that sienna and orange swirling with the stripes…..and I kept my eyes open for pictures I liked so that I could recreate them on canvas. That said, I had…

Full dark no stars only a  baby moon scratches a smiley in my line of sight. The wounds are not raw not anymore only a thin scar that flares stretches tight wanting to know with barely a glimmer of hope that you were somehow right. Full dark no stars when you wake from your nightmare…