Neera Kashyap

rain comes to the hills
after the city desert
just as I enter home:
   light, irregular, drumming –
rain and heart beats flow as one

here in solitude
       Mind follows to sink in rest
in vistas of blue hills
then like a crouching cat… waits
to blot the hills with other thoughts

plump pink clouds nestle
in the blue rain washed ranges
I smile at the hues -
a girl rises from a sparse field
smiles at my pink umbrella

A peach tree in a
luscious orchard never fruits
a forest fire flares –
a singed orchard and the peach
shocked into pale pink flowering

- Summer home is based on the traditional Japanese Tanka structure of of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables per verse