Travel Notes
(A collection of poems written during my various travels)


Saturday, June 17, 2006
At the Pass

Time passed by
and I knew not where it flew
for its wings drew no forks across its path
but I followed the eagle’s flight
from Marhi to Keylong
shading the sky
a shifting diorama of landscape
snapped memories of the city structure
matching the eagerness of our transport
that gobbled and digested
my weak angled compositions
around each bend and turn
as I twisted between two large people
sticking out my camera
while a rush of wind
wet moisture
cold awareness
gripped me and invaded my bones
and I welcomed its icy touch
finally standing there at Rohtang
waiting
watching
all things coming to a pass.

Shalini Pattabiraman


03/27/04
The Visit

For an epic of seasons,
I had wondered what might change
the arbitrary passing of day
measured by shadows
sweeping the half-light,
until the visit to Mukhteshwar,
where covered under a ceiling of stars
I slowly woke to a pale dawn sky
rising just below the luminant crown of Trishul.

Mesmerised, I stood
deaf to the tumult of civilization,
Gazing at the endless, expanse
panning all around.
There is the flutter in the wind
from the buzz in dancing grass,
to the highest tips, against treetops of deodars,
brushing a sound, building a wave
that hits the mountains and plummets
into the lap of a valley
Up and up it springs again, so low, so close.

Silence is divided into bursts of wind, singing
between the hum of bees
and the chirping of birds,
between our conversations starved for words.
What I have touched in this yawning landscape
is nothing, but the silence within.
No longer, watched by eager hands of the clock
pushing the slow, jammed pistons of life,
for the first time, I feel alive!!!

Shalini Pattabiraman


Waiting
- Shalini Pattabiraman

I am not in the mood to try more.
Equate my half desired wings with power to lift
above the domes of the pre-fabricated flight plan, I shoved aside.
I sit in the lounge of arrivals and departures
where life's stillness gathers dust
that I rub off with the edge of my toe.

This poem was published at www.ndtv.com under poetry corner.

Travel

I walk on the earth,
to draw footsteps as if they might lead to you.
My footsteps are washed away in rain
and yours captured by the sea.
That is the distance that separates us

Shalini Pattabiraman