The lotus pond next door

Our road by the cross

take a look at the pond to the left

we walk here everyday, while we enjoy our evening walks, me and the dogs. This side has a parapet

This picture shows the pond more clearly

And here are the lotuses finally

Many months ago, when I came, here, I would wonder if lotuses would grow…and viola I found them here one day

I walk around this pond everyday. There is no option actually. Between the closest neighbour to the south of my house, my path takes me around this pond, no matter where I have to go. So I have to cross this pond several times a day, if I want to go out of my home.

For months after I came here, I saw the pond still. No ducks, no life, nothing. Only on a rare occasion on some of the branches of the overhanging tree, I would see a few birds flutter, or a langur jump across and vanish in the greenery around.

Then I started noticing the green leaves beginning to cover the surface of the pond. I know lotus leaves, but no buds, no flowers ever. For months it remained that way. Then I wondered to myself, if the flowers did not come with the sun. And sure enough one day, accidentally, I went out in the morning, for normally mornings are reserved for other things than going out, I peeped toward the pond and lo and behold, there were lotuses blooming and many at that 🙂 Of course they had to someday, I would see the folded petals in the my evening walks but wonder about the mystery- not knowing that they fold up too. Now i do.

I wonder if most of my learning and lessons do not come from nature, in many a different way!

By the bye, the reason I write blogs, when I do is to share the love of things that I notice around, and due to my love for photography- no other reason.

Tree Frogs

Behind a curtain, a folded mat

A bathroom door or the kitchen cabinet

I’ve had many a chance encounter

With beautiful, small, hopping, brown-back tree frogs

Whose sightings’ve brought simple joys to me.

Even though sometimes their motion

Has tempted a slithering snake

To practice a quick snapping of its jaws

Reveal the raw pulsating nature in its untrammeled rustic countenance

Where one feeds on another without remorse, without cruelty

Or how natural it all feels.

Even though sometimes their motion

Has alerted the dogs to shed their daytime languor

Go chasing under computer tables, bookshelves,

dining table or tree trunks piled in the yard

These tree frogs have made it seem

In these close-by presences

That nature, its encompassing arms

Its flora, fauna and hot’n cool breezes

Embrace me, making me one ‘mong ‘em.

In sending in these little forms it’s emissaries

I am one ‘mong ‘em

(for they accept it so)

These frogs, snakes, birds, bees, spiders, centipedes and butterflies

For they fear me not, nor I them

As lightly we all go by our rhythms, our mayhem

This another leaf of our life in the country.

6^th November 2014

(for some reason i am not able to indicate different paragraphs by space, so indicating them with bold fonts)

This but one among them