Life

There are streaks of orange in the sky and in the river.  My wet hair drips water onto the smooth red tomatoes I pluck. Beyond the tomatoes the air smells of dainty roses, lined on the peripheries by ripe cucumbers and gourds. The sunflowers on the other side are beginning to stir. Swarms of honeybees are flying to the flowers, their buzz faint above the babble of the river.

Soon I will be asked to move away for two months. The river will start throbbing with rainwater, flooding the brown patch home to my hut, submerging the green tracts of my garden. The mighty water will force my shrubby plants, accustomed only to the love of the sun and clouds and the intimate affection of my fingers, into a harshness that will dissolve them. My plants will die in the water that gave them life all these months.

I will miss the sound of the river, its occasional roar and the continuous stir. Its lilting waters will echo in my memory. I will sing to the potted plants that I grow in the two months. I will tell them how the river turned blue and orange and golden, how it laughed in the rain and sweated in the sun. I will tell them how I live to meet the river again, and how together, we will bring to life the green promise of placidity.

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©Rasagya Kabra, August 7, 2011