Friday, May 25, 2012

Mango Showers


The warm wind blows,
ripe with warm sticky memories
of childhood summers -
scraped knees, marbles and kites
 and elbows dripping golden yellow
mango juice.

I lie sprawled –
half on–half off
the couch,
feeling a lazy caress
as the air sluggishly drifts
from corner of the room to another.
The Hindu flutters briefly,
the pages fighting a losing battle
against the humidity.
And then it too lies limp
letting the heat wash over it.
On the front page,
a bespectacled man smiles and waves
sporting a coffee cup halo

Dry leaves rustle on the concrete outside,
the crunch competing with the sound
of the tender coconut vender -
“Fresh and Tender”
“Full of Juice”
he claims.
“Beat the heat”
he promises in a fit of sales talk fancy.
His voice is soon drowned out,
by the man who pushes
a blue hand cart
piled with baby mangoes
waiting to be sold by the kilo
and pickled
by many a household
in anticipation of
a time without mangoes

With a jerk, the fan stumbles to a halt,
filling the room with a sultry silence,
and making no difference to the breeze
who does as she pleases,
and keeps her own hours.
The outside cacophony
competes with
the silence inside,
as I escape this heat
to the summers of my past – 
where the winds were never this warm
and the mangoes were always juicier.

1 comment:

  1. Mangoes remind me of home
    (When things were better)
    All things are better, when they also have mangoes.

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