Monsoon Madness

Monsoon Madness
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He spreads his wings from the southern oceans
Through thick layers of nimbus clouds
Blue skies turn dark over the Konkan coast
Strobes of lightning prepare the floor
For the leap of the monsoon rain dancer.
There he comes, the cloud messenger
Long cloud hair billowing in thunderstorms
And the quivering waves swell and rise
Waiting for the return of the handsome wave dancer
As the wild white wave welters
And weaves its way over seabirds on the shore
Over coconut palms and coffee leaves
The puny trickle of a mountain stream metamorphose
Into mighty cascading waterfalls, saying goodbye
To the heat and dust, blood and sweat of the Indian summer.
Dark as the night, he travels north
Cracking sounds of whiplash rings in change
He dances his way over Deccan dreams
Over parched, cracked land and farmer’s tears,
Waiting in vain for monsoon rain showers.

He sweeps over dry brown fields
Leaping from cloud to cloud in glee
Over forests and lakes and the great Gangetic plains.
And the rice fields suddenly glow with green
Painted by the swish of the cloud artist’s brush
She watches with wonder over distant fields of rice
The arrival of dancing pillars of wild rain showers.
Life springs from pain, yes, it’s the monsoon game
Vanquishing the moribund and the dead
With gay abandon, She runs to her cloud warrior
Droplets glisten on her hair, nose-ring and lips
Aroused nipples wet under her rain soaked sari
She the receiver, he the giver of life as they dance
In the cool monsoon rain showers.
Further north he flies, cloud dancer, rain warrior
Till he rests below the ancient heights
Of the towering Himalayas, doorway to the heavens.
He bows his head to the abode of the Gods
Touches divine feet with monsoon rain showers.

The rivers roar and breach their banks
The Brahmaputra dances in a drunken death trance
The river demons swallow cities and gnash their teeth
Forests perish in landslides and currents suck life in
There’s water, water as far as the eyes can see
Brown, soil filled sea of water
Where, O where are you, gentle monsoon rain shower?
He flies over green fields, does the wave warrior,
Giver of life and death, O spirit of the clouds,
Life gleams in a grain of rice
Life emerges from death and in death there is life
In the clouds and fields, in the womb and in dreams
It is one and the same
It always has been and always will be
As sure as the Sun rising by itself
Shining beams of light that lives
Through the billowing dark hair of the cloud dancer
Shining through the mad winds and wild rain
Of life and the mystic madness of monsoon rain showers.