Rama K. Ramaswamy 

Red

The wind heralds it’s coming
To huff and puff, to fritter away
The flamboyant confabulation of crayon colors
And perfect moments of eye candy,
All those apple hues
Radiating this Northeastern landscape,
But not yet, not yet…
Toasted beauty raked up on a neighbor’s lawn
Crumbles on crunchy strudel-
Dive in, stomp, sound the joy!
But not yet, not yet…
Planispiral petal whorls, shedding their skirts,
While rosy roulettes stand, sentinel still,
Their terra firma fingers cradling sustenance,
Just a while longer, a miniscule minute…
Whistling voices balloon, around the elbow bend,
So close now…
A mother calling for dinner-
A religious awakening
Like John The Baptist, a cleansing-
Cold hands, promising kisses of a clean sweeping-
Whitewashed fences, verve and tense-
Ablations of sins, on its way…
But not yet, not yet…
So near, yet not enough to
Unfurl her palm, fingers like splinters.
Pandora had a secret, did you know?
Kneels the world sere, dun palette-
But not yet, not yet…
Let’s stay with the red-
Bask in Beaujolais benediction under a waning, silvery sun
And you must tongue it to taste it, bobbing for the reds, sink into a golden delicious
Moment, like words let out, the fistfuls of cares
Expired from their efforts, released and crystallized-
Frozen and felled, falling from icy bows, wild are such things-
But not yet, not yet…
Because I want to stay here,
Yet here, in the red…

Phoenix

Not to be obvious, it’s not a hoax-
The fatigue is chronic, now circling the drain,
No end and no beginning; circle the alchemist’s center-point,
Rise up, the call is ghoulish and scraping.
The voice tunnels, under seas and through airs
On this side of the mountain, within a zone of withering,
The rain shadow is forceful and the formless spaces are cut.

Fall is a phoenix, a singular spiral!
A symbol, it’s cosmic, a geometric archetype of the psyche,
A duality of body and mind, in perpetual search for balance-
I’m thankful for the traditions of giving, of taking.
Rise up, it is persistent, it is lingering, rise up!
We call it the Fall to let it go-
Every Chaparral grass needs to burn, to blaze!

Only then can igneous rocks spall, curling granites
Relaxing tense muscles, yawning one slow millennia off-
Its metamorphosed worry lines…
Ash is a complementary color, for
No volcano achieves this creation, ARDET!
No caked, raked up muck coats these quills.
The embittered shade of fervent ardor
Summoning the smooth sun face, without angles grounded by earth,

An implosion- the fiery inferno gyres internal,
Chase me round, around, a whirlpool in reverse,
Bound for the door.
I know where it is, follow the suit-prints, on the third day
I will follow Lazarus, skinless but arisen,
Senseless but awake,
Fragile, yet a luminary.
I will rise, I will return, the Phoenix from the Fall.

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