The road is everywhere now
houses adrift, clouds sliding past Preet’s roof, past every gate.
Blue water swallows the old fence lines.

Boys who ran through mustard fields
float face-up, eyes wide to a sky gone silent.

The wheat called for rain. Rain came,
and came. And will not leave.

Barefoot on the crumbling bund, I watch
yellow blooms bow beneath the current
mustard that grew waist-high last month
now learns to breathe sideways.

A duck dips through a bus shelter.
My father’s tractor, red once, rusts in a stranger’s field.

The floodwater knows no Punjabi, no Hindi—
just the physics of fill and drain.

At the relief tent: women,
silent, wringing silt from dupattas.

A child asks when. A mother shakes her head.
This water plays no favorites.
It takes the wedding album, it takes the diesel can.

Roads will spend years remembering their routes.
My sister says: ik teer naal do shikar—
but this arrow hit everything, killed nothing clean.

The proverb floats by, useless as soap,
and we stand in water to our thighs,
watching the old words
drift.

I was seven
That day we waded the south fork
Of the rushing Stillaguamish,
Cousin Mel and I,
Each a hand tightly grasped in
Father’s.

We had pitched camp
Amongst the crumbling foundations,
The sinking brick paths,
Near the still standing chimney
Of Big Four Lodge,
Once playground of the wealthy,
Once only reached by train.

We climbed the dusty, steep,
Old, old trail.
Together we stood reviving
In the chill breeze
Of the cave,
The tons of ice overhead
Melting drop by drop
To fall on heads and shoulders.







Blinking, back in sunlight,
We watched reflections shimmer
On a small pool.
Father having dared,
Clothes shed,
We jumped into that mirror
Of heart stopping
Melted ice field,
Screaming, scrambled out.

We ate Mac and cheese
Hot off the white gas stove
That eve,
Hot dogs charred in our fire.

As dusk fell to darkness
Far from city lights,
We lined in shared anticipation.
Chins and eyes skyward,
Father gripping elk hunting field glasses,
Our vision darted
Horizon to horizon,
Searching, searching
A thousand and one stars.

Look, look!
A hand shot up, pointing.
We shared the nation’s fervor, fever
To spot a speeding satellite,
For every night held that dawn
Of the Soviet/U.S. space race.

We kids
Slept in the open,
My parents
In the big green canvas tent.
‘Round midnight
Mother woke us
With a wild yell,
A big, fat bullfrog
On her feet,
Its eyes found with
Flashlight.

over snow fields
chimney smoke versus clouds
                         racing shadows

I have laid in the tall grass
and let the sweet smell of its lush
green blades,
fill my lungs and head,
until giddy,
and light headed.

I lay back and become enveloped
in and ecstasy of
heady tranquilly.

My fingers traced the stems
sensually
liken to a lovers fingers
over silken skin

Papus are freed and fill the air
drifting on the breeze
carrying my dreams and wished
to my love

From Publius to Livia

Livia, I write to renounce your fields,
My sweat no longer yours to claim.
My harvests fed the eternal city,
Yet you see only Gaius and his shadow, Marcus.
...
Blind to the furrows I plowed,
The terraces I raised, the grapes I nurtured,
I tamed wild Ceres before you came,
Turning forest to field, field to farm.
...
Then you arrived, trailing discord’s hound,
Gorging on Gaius’s hollow praise,
Stealing credit for my toil,
Casting me as a shade on your wall.
...
I prayed to the Capitoline Triad,
Offered a white bull to Jupiter, king,
Begging radiant Sol to burn through your guise,
And bless my path with brighter horizons.
...
To Juno, I burned frankincense and myrrh,
Pleading ****** to sweep you astray,
Your pets adrift on Sicilian shores,
Left to Polyphemus’s wrathful gaze.
...
To Minerva, I poured my own wine,
Urging her to unmask your arachnid soul,
Your arrogance a web of self-woven lies,
Dagger-tipped legs stained with stolen blood.
...
The gods have heard, Livia. Your weave unravels.
My fields await under noonday sun,
While yours wither in my absence,
Your perfection a fading, frail deceit.

Signed, PERTINAX

I'm waiting for the Rain to fall from the Sky
and gracefully sway with the Breeze.
Bringing Calmness, Sanity and Peace around.
Blessing the green fields and the Trees.
I'm waiting for the Rain to fall from the Sky
and Splash on the window Panes.
So Children can hum their rainy Tune,
While it makes puddles in the traffic Lanes.
I'm waiting for the Rain to fall from the Sky,
To Wish Us Hello and Goodbye.
To each Pretty Soul, it gives a tender Hug.
Taking their Blues to the Mighty Sky.
I'm waiting for Raindrops to fall from the Sky,
So We all can have some Fun.
The Raindrops must Kiss, each one of Us.
Before the Sky, gets covered by Sun.

And opposite,
In the electricity fields,
Sit rows of hollowed-out shells.

Now in-land,
Though out of place,
The lightning whelks generate Hell.

And parallel—
Conducting phantasmagorical light—
The pylons coil around them:

Reverberations from the industrial fields
Where the blood lines coagulate and dwell.

And the blood lines—
They feed the hollowed-out shells—
Form conglomerate veins.

And in their hands—
The great fires they weld—
Ever-surging, moth-coaxing light.