Soft and cold, the mud beneath my toes

Juggling in my palms, the sapphire Velcro orb.

In white, I hopped and leaped and walked

To brinks and brooks and those wild bergamots.

Peeping sunshine, pacing and dwindling

Resonant, the same old woods singing to me

Unfathomable, as they grew younger it seemed

With the precious babyhood rhyme and me.

I found the log of miro bowing along

On which we used to park twice each month.

Chronicles of Beowulf and Endymion

And echoing dialogues that I sung along.

They tinkled on the phonolite ahead

As falling gems of the golden oreide,

Of the one you wore around the neck

For years, I couldn’t quite forget.

I sat on the log, contoured and damp,

As mire dried beneath my nails,

From a scalariform tree, jumped a ted

On foot to his abode, parallel to my thread.

A six-fold icicle tumbled down a bough,

Showing the mound I once insisted we go

Through tedded grass left in rows

But you not at all agreed, though!

I used to doze on your lap in this arch,

Now I rest on this friendless bark

Amid hums and echoes conveying lack

Of you, your buried yarns rolling back.

This day you’re there, upstairs

Your gleaming hair flowing to flares

Caught up cloudscape sketching grace

I see you smile in your matching lace.

Well! I made this cream puff at home

As you did once I felt alone

But no! No note or payphone can inform

“I just miss you, Grand mom!”

Belonging to the valley of Gods, Kullu, Priya is a damsel in her late teenage. Presently, she is pursuing a B.Tech degree in Computer Science and Engineering at NIT Hamirpur, Himachal Pradesh, India.