Seasonal Dyslexia

We are on the verge of summer, a seasonal interval between winter’s wrath and the capsizing heat of May. All the leaves are brown and falling; neem leaves with their sun-dried tips, twirled like epiphanies, peepal leaves that drown in the air and mingle with the cosmopolitan crowd of fallen leaves, bougainvillea that lie resplendent on the sides of the road, an orgy of bright pink and luscious red.

The sun stamps wildly across all that has fallen and the wind grinds the refuse into dust; leaf-rust. Nature knows no decay.

Spring is gallivanting in the middle of this fall, a picara riding across autumn’s terrain. Some trees lie bare, vacant, waiting, like amnesiacs, memory stripped by the wind while others have been replenished and stand tall and ripe, fistfuls of laughter leaping into the sky. All that was still is now in bloom. Flowers gape at me, follow me wherever I go; gasping yellows, stormy reds, midnight blues and bridal whites.

This is winter’s legacy; this mélange of seasons that compete and coincide, collide with wind, beat against our restless brows and compete for our attention. The afternoons are sunny and dry, the evenings wind-tossed while night wears the colour of cloudy ink and mourns the passing of winter’s chill.

Summer will announce itself on our tongues as a craving for lime and ice with a mixture of sweet and salt. Girls will wear their skirts short and carry umbrellas like lethal weapons; will trap their locks in hats or plaits and make too much of too little.

Soon I must leave this cityofdjinns that I have come to love.