Chasing This Monsoon Poem by Daniel Trevelyn Joseph

Chasing This Monsoon



What shall I do when the Angel of rains
Leaves me dry and sweating in October heat
Of Mumbai soon? Their forerunners,
The lightning and thunder of late summer
Have gone a little earlier, and sought
Other places above the sky, leaving the eaves
Drip, dripping with a thud at lengthening intervals.

I walk for some distance and look up some angels
Flying through drizzle in colourless sky, reminding me
Of the wet crow outside my window on 5th floor
Showing patches of white skin, and feathers a-cluster:
All life is a form of angels.

I have reached the end Kalanagar bus stop,
And on walk back, see a small bird flying 20 feet
Ahead every time, and picking up some bit of food
From pavement and as I catch up with it, flying
Another 20 low feet in a straight line to perch:
Didn’t behave like a sparrow, and so I thought
It is a lark, till I was level with it to see the black bib
Distinguishing mark of the male sparrow. I wonder
How unlike us who spin and toil, these angels
Simply search for food throughout life
Amidst periods of rest and sleep.

Angels of Duino Elegies of Rilke
I have not understood your nature yet
Only sometimes I think you are the dead
Singing their own elegies; other times,
I think you are outside our ken, only in his
Or you are only ideas, waiting for us to turn
The stone to see the butterfly flapping its wings
Pursuing its mate in the short available time.

Angels have to be felt, and articulated in time,
And put in the poem, painting, sculpture or music
Before they fly away into the light of common day.

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