The Artist Date

I come out for an artist date,

Nervous as a sixteen year old.

Leftover Diwali crackers resound,

Young men saunter in the park.

An old man coughs, a speaker blares;

With every sound I tell myself,

This, is a bad idea.

 

What good could come

of spending time alone?

A sick, brown, queer woman

relegated to social isolation,

How could I belong

in the vast outside?

 

My body settles on the park bench,

attuning to bird calls and flutters;

Insects chirp and forage around,

The plants a brilliant green.

Loud human sounds threaten, yes,

But dim, sunlit clouds soothe.

Even where plastic waste is scattered,

Young life abounds.

 

Saplings in the cement cracks, 

Mushrooms on the broken logs,

Weeds grow in an electrical box.

Life will not be defeated,

And neither will I;

A human ambassador 

for living, thriving nature - 

 

My tired voice will croak again.

My reality is not on social media

I am not validated by followers

Likes do not determine my breath.

Here I sit in the sun,

With my interspecies kin,

My breath is proof that I am alive

to witness the glide of the kite.

 

Mimosa flowers strewn in grass

Black ants on the paved path

The truth is much simpler that I

Am a member of Life

The cawing crows remind me 

to savour their company

In the few minutes we are together

Before meeting blessed death.

 

How complicated can it be?

This unknown play I am enacting,

When I always know,

That there is a definite end.

I draw my breaths and hope to love,

To minimise the harm that I may cause.

 

I grow and flow,

Deep within I know,

Death will come for us all

What is to fear when I see?

No matter what path I take

The end will always be the same.

 

Sunlight smears the grasses green,

I take a breath and sigh - 

I’m glad we took this time today,

My artist self and I.