[1] A Passage on Time (Washington DC)

Don’t the ginkos wait all year For these brief weeks of cool blue Skies - they call it Indian Summer – To unfurl their haloes of golden flame?

Sometimes it is easy to lose track Of time, even as living is about time Most of the time. Six months, she says, Since they have started sleeping in the same bed.

No, she corrects herself, it is seven actually.

[2] A Passage on Memory (Hyderabad, India) “My memory is again in the way of your history.” - Agha Shahid Ali

This country, even as I didn’t know it, remains The substratum that I must drill into every time To standup these edifices of words, in a language Out of whose palm I surreptitiously ate, a starveling.

These words are as close to me as memory, Yet I haven’t summoned them by name often. They, like you, stand at an distinct angle to memory, From whose density you seek escape today

Into a lighter, less crowded air. But these are Orphic moments that I must sing as I attempt To ascend on a stair of alphabet towards a moment Of painless clarity. Perhaps it is true, the spirit needs

Memory in the absence of history, and history in Making seeks escape in the presence of memory.